From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 1 06:43 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1243" "Tue" "1" "July" "1997" "08:36:02" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "31" "RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA07627 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 06:43:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA07617 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 06:43:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p20.gnt.com (x2p20.gnt.com [204.49.68.225]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA31028 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:42:58 -0500 Received: by x2p20.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC85FA.C45A4620@x2p20.gnt.com>; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:42:54 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC85FA.C45A4620@x2p20.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1242 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:36:02 -0500 Antonio, The probes we are talking about would be travelling at relativistic velocities (0.9xx c) at these velocities it would be nearly impossible to synch the clocks no matter how good your lasers. Time runs at different rates a those velocities so even atomic clocks would not stay in synch. Now if you can keep them on the same vector but spread out across a wide volume of space it would work, but it would be easier to just build them in orbit around the sun, say about the asteroid belt or even further. As Kelly (or was it Kevin?) popinted out, a sufficiently large array spread out that far could see quite a bit of detail of the nearer stars without actually going there. My sketch for a planned exploration of the nearer stars included the use of large space borne telescopes to identify likely systems for priority in scheduling further robotic and manned missions. Lee Parker Of course, if a probe scope is nice, what about a multi-probe interferometric telescope (scopes being kept in sych through good lasers and atomic clocks).Its just an idea, but it will come true sometime next century. Antonio C T Rocha [L. Parker] Bohr moved in atomic circles while Schrodinger waved and Heisenberg hesitated. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 1 07:05 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1368" "Tue" "1" "July" "1997" "16:03:03" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "41" "Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA11320 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 07:05:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA11302 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 07:05:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id QAA01890; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:03:03 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707011403.QAA01890@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1367 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars? Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:03:03 +0200 (MET DST) > From: Antonio C T Rocha > > kyle wrote: > > > Greetings all: > > > > I think I should point out some reasons for why we should go to the > > stars: > > > > 1) Self Preservation > > 2) To honor the great explorers of the past > > 3) Its our nature to explore > > 4) To boldly go where no man has gone before... (Gene Roddenberry was > > right about that) > > > > And most of all: > > 5) To learn all that is learnable. > > > > Does anyone need better reasons? If so, I have none. > > > > Kyle Mcallister > > For the same reasons medieval Russian peasants fled to the woods? > (Maybe this falls under .1.) > - To get as far away as possible form: the Boyars orders, > foremen and henchmen; from the Csars Tax Collectors and press gangs, and > from the Zealots bonfires.... (and keep whatever honey I find, whatever > furs I trap, enjoy whatever I build, feed on whatever I hunt or raise > and sing whatever I feel like, when I feel like it). > Sure its optimistic, but its a reason too. > In other words: to open up frontiers. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That's the best, I think! Sums up nicely all the particular reasons like that listed by Kyle and others. Though it is useful to elaborate the special cases too, just to explain what this opening of frontiers actually and practically means. -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 1 07:56 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["832" "Tue" "1" "July" "1997" "16:53:57" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "22" "RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA04246 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 07:56:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA04185 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 07:56:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id QAA02002; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:53:57 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707011453.QAA02002@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 831 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, lparker@cacaphony.net Cc: zkulpa@ippt.gov.pl Subject: RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:53:57 +0200 (MET DST) > From: "L. Parker" > > I am about to shoot myself in the foot here... > > Personally, I would even volunteer to spend the rest of my life on a survey > ship just going from star to star, perhaps not ever returning to Earth in > several human lifetimes. I would even take a one way colony mission if I > KNEW there was habitable real estate at the other end. > > I know, I argued vehmenently against one-way missions and the reader > should try to distinguish my personal preferences from what I believe > is realistically possible. > I personally think that vehement arguing against was the real shot in the foot... Many things considered realistically impossible have been made possible by the people fighting for them instead of arguing against them, contrary to their preferences... -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 1 09:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["887" "Tue" "1" "July" "1997" "18:19:14" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "24" "starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA28499 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:22:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA28481 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:22:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-030.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wj5gs-000GXwC; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 18:22:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 886 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 18:19:14 +0100 Antonio wrote, > For the same reasons medieval Russian peasants fled to the woods? > (Maybe this falls under .1.) > - To get as far away as possible form: the Boyars orders, >foremen and henchmen; from the Csars Tax Collectors and press gangs, and >from the Zealots bonfires.... (and keep whatever honey I find, whatever >furs I trap, enjoy whatever I build, feed on whatever I hunt or raise >and sing whatever I feel like, when I feel like it). > Sure its optimistic, but its a reason too. > In other words: to open up frontiers. > I dont know about you, but earth seems too crowded for my taste, and >more crowded by the minute. Indeed you'd open frontiers, but the difference with previous frontiers is that this one is sponsored and thus regulated before it starts. BTW. Writing this, I started wondering what would happen if people start a mutiny. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 1 09:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2003" "Tue" "1" "July" "1997" "18:19:11" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "53" "starship-design: Re: Quantum Gravity" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA28643 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:23:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA28607 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:23:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-030.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wj5gp-000GXsC; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 18:22:03 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2002 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Quantum Gravity Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 18:19:11 +0100 Hi Zenon, >>I guess the article suggests that. However like Lee suggested, the cells >>may be streched, something that I haven't seen in cellular automation. > >I wonder what this stretching means for space quanta? >Can we "stretch" the energy quantum? Streching would mean changing the properties. Eg When (st)rings get streched, they get more rigid and information has to travel faster than in a sloppy loose string. >>(Indeed this doesn't change the speed of c locally.) >>I also wonder how one would incorporate effects like timedilation >>into cellular automation. > >I have no idea (yet ;-). I guess I've to stretch your imagination first :)) >>Speaking about time... How does this ring-universe see time? Is it >>continuous or discrete too (like in cellular automation). > >In the article time has been reported to be quantized too - >only then the "cellular automaton" vision and the Ca speed limit >make sense. Hmm, if Zeno had known this, he would never have had a paradox about the frozen movement: If you want to move 1 meter, you have to move 0.5 first, but then you have to move 0.25 first, ad infinitum. In his time he would have concluded that there is a smallest step, so movement isn't frozen. (Of course now we know about finiteness of infinite sums.) >>Maybe most mistakes will selfcontain. If you get uncontrolable mass/energy >>creation, you may create a blackhole which on its turn can loop ZPF around >>and separate the anomaly from the rest of the ZPF. >>Other errors may collapse to the lowest energy state (that of normal ZPF). >> >>Of course in local environments the effects are likely to be catastrophic. > >Probably many will do, but would there bee a guarantee >that none can lead to switching off the entire computer? The last few tens of billion years no one seems to have succeeded... >But all this is a speculation much more far-fetched >than the wildest Kyle ideas, I am afraid... ;-) OK, I get the hint ;) We'll close this subject soon. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 1 09:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["554" "Tue" "1" "July" "1997" "09:59:39" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "12" "starship-design: Announcement: starship-design mailing list archive" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA09939 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:59:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA09919; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:59:39 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707011659.JAA09919@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 553 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Announcement: starship-design mailing list archive Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:59:39 -0700 (PDT) I have made an archive of the starship-design mailing list available for FTP from: ftp://ftp.efn.org/pub/users/stevev/starship-design/ Archived list postings are grouped and sorted by month; for example, postings from December, 1996 are in the file sd199612. Postings from the establishing of this mailing list in July 1996 through June 1997 are currently included. I have older archives of postings from the old Cc: list that I may get around to making available later, and I will try to update the archives monthly with each new month's postings. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 1 15:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2722" "Tue" "1" "July" "1997" "19:29:33" "-0300" "Antonio C T Rocha" "arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br" nil "70" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA25625 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 15:46:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br ([200.252.253.1] (may be forged)) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA25537 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 15:46:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Metacor.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (dl1186-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.186]) by srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (8.8.5/SCA-6.6) with ESMTP id WAA10111 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 22:42:17 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33B984CC.6639E8F7@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Organization: is unrealistic X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Antonio C T Rocha Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2721 From: Antonio C T Rocha Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 19:29:33 -0300 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > Antonio wrote, > > > For the same reasons medieval Russian peasants fled to the woods? > > (Maybe this falls under .1.) > > - To get as far away as possible form: the Boyars orders, > >foremen and henchmen; from the Csars Tax Collectors and press gangs, > and > >from the Zealots bonfires.... (and keep whatever honey I find, > whatever > >furs I trap, enjoy whatever I build, feed on whatever I hunt or raise > > >and sing whatever I feel like, when I feel like it). > > Sure its optimistic, but its a reason too. > > In other words: to open up frontiers. > > I dont know about you, but earth seems too crowded for my taste, > and > >more crowded by the minute. > > Indeed you'd open frontiers, but the difference with previous > frontiers is > that this one is sponsored and thus regulated before it starts. > You are right, of course, and I agree - intellectually. I was probably distracted by visions of Phoenicians reaching South America and the Gulf of Mexico in the Iron Age, of Vikings reaching North America in the Middle Ages (maybe following fleeing Irish Monks) and of Settlers, exilees, and Indentured Servants seeting foot on the edge of a new world.Yes, these were only made possible _after_ chartered explorers had made the discoveries, usually at the Crowns service. This _is_, after all, still the first phase: exploration. It does require the funding and support (and submission to) a socially powerful entity. Sorry, I jumped the gun. :-) > BTW. Writing this, I started wondering what would happen if people > start > a mutiny. > > Timothy Ask any naval officer. ?Probably the same that would have happened before the 1800s: starvation adrift or survivors marooned on some barren rock. With discipline and order, and luck and nearby infrastructure, maybe - just maybe - they could go "pirate". Does humanity change? Of course, by 2050 psychology and knowledge of neurology/physiology/genetics might be capable of identifying "mutinous types" and exclude them from the proj., maybe even inducing "correct" behaviour in the rest (does humanity change?). This might be in the sponsors interest to resonably ensure their investment. It would probably be called something neutral, like "profile typing, selection, and orientation". Then again, long (two to five year) periods of hibernation might already be feasible, making it easier to ensure order without too much mind-bending. Therefore, selection based on 21st century psych profiles will probably avert any possibility of a "real" mutiny - unless the sponsor is willing to take chances. How are volunteers for service in the Poles chosen? Conditions could be similar? Antonio C Rocha From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 1 15:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1680" "Tue" "1" "July" "1997" "19:40:00" "-0300" "Antonio C T Rocha" "arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br" nil "55" "Re: starship-design: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA25648 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 15:46:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br ([200.252.253.1] (may be forged)) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA25563 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 15:46:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Metacor.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (dl1186-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.186]) by srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (8.8.5/SCA-6.6) with ESMTP id WAA10119 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 1997 22:42:22 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33B9873F.D17F5D04@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Organization: is unrealistic X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <01BC85FA.C45A4620@x2p20.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Antonio C T Rocha Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1679 From: Antonio C T Rocha Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: Re: starship-design: Go Starwisps Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 19:40:00 -0300 L. Parker wrote: > Antonio, > > The probes we are talking about would be travelling at relativistic > velocities > (0.9xx c) at these velocities it would be nearly impossible to synch > the > clocks no matter how good your lasers. Time runs at different rates a > those > velocities so even atomic clocks would not stay in synch. > > Now if you can keep them on the same vector but spread out across a > wide > volume of space it would work, but it would be easier to just build > them in > orbit around the sun, say about the asteroid belt or even further. As > Kelly > (or was it Kevin?) popinted out, a sufficiently large array spread out > that far > could see quite a bit of detail of the nearer stars without actually > going there. > > My sketch for a planned exploration of the nearer stars included the > use of > large space borne telescopes to identify likely systems for priority > in > scheduling further robotic and manned missions. > > Lee Parker > > Of course, if a probe scope is nice, what about a multi-probe > interferometric telescope (scopes being kept in sych through good > lasers > and atomic clocks).Its just an idea, but it will come true sometime > next > century. > > Antonio C T Rocha > > [L. Parker] > Bohr moved in atomic circles while Schrodinger waved and Heisenberg > hesitated. Of course you re right. They probe-scopes would only be useful if set in place before the ships arrival, and being capable of transmitting data to, and being remotely controlled by the crew. As for a near-space or moon-based array, it would probably be quite able to compensate for dust and debris between us and nearby systems. Antonio C Rocha From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 2 08:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1639" "Wed" "2" "July" "1997" "17:02:23" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "42" "starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA15504 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 08:07:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA15457 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 08:07:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-028.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wjQy1-000GxRC; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 17:05:13 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1638 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 17:02:23 +0100 Antonio, >>Indeed you'd open frontiers, but the difference with previous >>frontiers is >>that this one is sponsored and thus regulated before it starts. > >You are right, of course, and I agree - intellectually. I was probably >distracted by visions of Phoenicians reaching South America and the Gulf >of Mexico in the Iron Age, of Vikings reaching North America in the >Middle Ages (maybe following fleeing Irish Monks) and of Settlers, >exilees, and Indentured Servants seeting foot on the edge of a new >world. >Yes, these were only made possible _after_ chartered explorers had >made the discoveries, usually at the Crowns service. Ah, now I understand your (and my) point better; As long as people are sponsored they will not really be able to be free from authority. But as soon as other less dependant people start coming in, there may indeed be an explosion of development. >This _is_, after all, still the first phase: exploration. It does >require the funding and support (and submission to) a socially powerful >entity. Yes, and since so much effort is involved there may be little room for people that are truely adventurous. >> BTW. Writing this, I started wondering what would happen if people >> start a mutiny. > >Ask any naval officer. ?Probably the same that would have happened >before the 1800s: starvation adrift or survivors marooned on some barren >rock. With discipline and order, and luck and nearby infrastructure, >maybe - just maybe - they could go "pirate". Does humanity change? Ah, yes I could have thought of that myself. I guess I was too intrigued (not inspired ;) by the idea itself. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 2 11:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1720" "Wed" "2" "July" "1997" "13:11:24" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "43" "RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA28213 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA28197 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p2.gnt.com [204.49.68.207]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA04185 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:12:08 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC86E9.89F889C0@x2p2.gnt.com>; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:12:05 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC86E9.89F889C0@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id LAA28199 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1719 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:11:24 -0500 Timothy and Antonio, Consider this scenario: A "sponsor" could be a government, a multi-national corporation or consortium, or it could be a company formed by the colonists, specifically for the purpose of equiping and sending a colony to another system. Something like "The Tau Ceti Development Corporation", or the "Chartered Procyon Expedition". Such groups would most likely be composed of people with common idealogies, interests or backgrounds. After all, what else were the Puritans who sailed to Plymouth if not a private company chartered for the express purpose of establishing a new colony. It is only a matter of scale... Lee Parker -----Original Message----- From: Timothy van der Linden [SMTP:TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl] Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 1997 11:02 AM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Ah, now I understand your (and my) point better; As long as people are sponsored they will not really be able to be free from authority. But as soon as other less dependant people start coming in, there may indeed be an explosion of development. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have seen the turnips singing By a lordly cabbage led; I have heard a dewdrop clinging To the rose that bowed her head; I have sniffed at a sonata, I have touched next Friday week; I have tasted a cantata I have smelt a sausage speak. Now of old if I had wildly Made the claims I do today I should soon, to put it mildly, Have been firmly led away; Doctors, acting with decision, Would have taken me in charge; Now they call it television -- And you see, I'm still at large! -- Lucio in the Manchester Guardian From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 2 11:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1703" "Wed" "2" "July" "1997" "13:11:35" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "45" "RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA28264 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA28234 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p2.gnt.com [204.49.68.207]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA04190 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:12:13 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC86E9.8CFB1B60@x2p2.gnt.com>; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:12:11 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC86E9.8CFB1B60@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1702 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:11:35 -0500 Antonio, For crew selection requirements you should probably look to the US submarine force for psych requirements. Colonists would be another matter. I doubt most "colonists" will be able to meet the same stringent requirements as crew members, nor that it would even be desirable for them to. Lee Parker -----Original Message----- From: Antonio C T Rocha [SMTP:arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br] Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 1997 5:30 PM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Timothy van der Linden wrote: Of course, by 2050 psychology and knowledge of neurology/physiology/genetics might be capable of identifying "mutinous types" and exclude them from the proj., maybe even inducing "correct" behaviour in the rest (does humanity change?). This might be in the sponsors interest to resonably ensure their investment. It would probably be called something neutral, like "profile typing, selection, and orientation". Then again, long (two to five year) periods of hibernation might already be feasible, making it easier to ensure order without too much mind-bending. Therefore, selection based on 21st century psych profiles will probably avert any possibility of a "real" mutiny - unless the sponsor is willing to take chances. How are volunteers for service in the Poles chosen? Conditions could be similar? "I am afraid the knockabout comedy of modern atomic physics is not very tender towards our aesthetic ideals. The stately drama of stellar evolution turns out to be more like the hair-breadth escapades in the films. The music of the spheres has a painful suggestion of -- jazz." -- Arthur S. Eddington, Stars and Atoms, 1926. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 2 11:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["796" "Wed" "2" "July" "1997" "13:11:48" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "27" "RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA28297 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA28274 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p2.gnt.com [204.49.68.207]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA04195 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:12:17 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC86E9.8F78ECA0@x2p2.gnt.com>; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:12:15 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC86E9.8F78ECA0@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 795 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:11:48 -0500 Zenon, I know you've seen it before, but, read the sig... -----Original Message----- From: Zenon Kulpa [SMTP:zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl] Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 1997 9:54 AM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; lparker@cacaphony.net Cc: zkulpa@ippt.gov.pl Subject: RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps I personally think that vehement arguing against was the real shot in the foot... Many things considered realistically impossible have been made possible by the people fighting for them instead of arguing against them, contrary to their preferences... -- Zenon Long experience has taught me not to believe in the limitations indicated by purely theoretical considerations. These - as we well know - are based on insufficient knowledge of all the relevant factors." Guglielmo Marconi From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 2 11:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["861" "Wed" "2" "July" "1997" "13:11:56" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "27" "RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA28323 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA28304 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p2.gnt.com [204.49.68.207]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA04200 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:12:20 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC86E9.91AA72A0@x2p2.gnt.com>; Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:12:18 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC86E9.91AA72A0@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id LAA28310 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 860 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:11:56 -0500 Timothy, You are assuming that the masses are interested enough to mutiny. The meek truly shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will have left...isn't that the nature of frontiers? Lee Parker -----Original Message----- From: Timothy van der Linden [SMTP:TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl] Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 1997 12:19 PM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Indeed you'd open frontiers, but the difference with previous frontiers is that this one is sponsored and thus regulated before it starts. BTW. Writing this, I started wondering what would happen if people start a mutiny. Timothy "It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense." -- Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics, 1948. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 05:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1970" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "14:04:32" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "54" "starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA08774 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 05:07:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA08765 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 05:07:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-018.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wjkfU-000GxXC; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:07:24 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1969 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 14:04:32 +0100 Lee, You pictured the following: >A "sponsor" could be a government, a multi-national corporation or >consortium, or it could be a company formed by the colonists, specifically >for the purpose of equiping and sending a colony to another system. >Something like "The Tau Ceti Development Corporation", or the "Chartered >Procyon Expedition". Such groups would most likely be composed of people >with common idealogies, interests or backgrounds. After all, what else >were the Puritans who sailed to Plymouth if not a private company >chartered for the express purpose of establishing a new colony. >It is only a matter of scale... So is the difference between family hierarchy (parents-children) and state hierarchy (government-citizens). I know the comparison is really bad, but I think that "a matter of scale" is just not the right idea. Only if trip time is about a year and the costs are less than $10,000,000 per person (more likely even less than $1,000,000), then one gets closer to your scenario of the Puritains. To find a group with common idealogies and a common salery with more that 7 figures is not very likely to be big. Timothy =========================================================================== "Why go to the stars?" part II --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lee, >You are assuming that the masses are interested enough to mutiny. Am I? I just wondered what the concequences are. >The meek truly shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will have left... >isn't that the nature of frontiers? Well, the "wild" will go where they can satisfy their needs best. If you are a multimillionaire, I'm not so sure if your needs can be satisfied best near TC or near Sun. The wild will also stay near Earth. Having a nice holiday home on Mars or owning a space station (1 km diameter with your own laws) seems pretty wild too. And as usual, the meek will follow the wild after a while. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 05:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["436" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "07:32:50" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "13" "RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA12434 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 05:37:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA12425 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 05:37:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p22.gnt.com [204.49.68.227]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA10947 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 07:37:14 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8783.ECA47E40@x2p2.gnt.com>; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 07:37:14 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8783.ECA47E40@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 435 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 07:32:50 -0500 Timothy, You have a point about rich people might not want to leave Earth. But what about if some group like the Southern Baptists have a big TV telethon to raise money (something they are real good at) and build their own colony ship. I was assuming that it would be able to get there in a reasonable amount of ship time, a couple of years at most. Lee A sufficiently incompetent ScF author is indistinguishable from magic. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 09:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["192" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "10:11:42" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "7" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA26406 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:12:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA26390 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:11:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.74]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA14806 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:11:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BBDD4D.4DD0@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BC8783.ECA47E40@x2p2.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 191 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 10:11:42 -0700 L. Parker wrote: > > I was assuming that it would be able to get there in a reasonable amount of ship time, > a couple of years at most. Want to get there quick? Use my engine. T=2(D/a)^.5 From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 09:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2504" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "12:34:14" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "72" "Re: starship-design: Re: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA05842 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:34:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA05821 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:34:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id MAA10479; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:34:14 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970703123413_-559618236@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2503 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Go Starwisps Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:34:14 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 6/30/97 4:14:42 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >>>>I used to agree with this. But given you can probably gain about the same >>>>amount of info via super sized telescopes, and the robots would report back >>>>for decades (by then the whole projects likely to be obsolete). I'm >>>>woundering if robot probes aer very usefull? >>> >>>First of all you'd need rather big telescopes to resolve something like a >>>meter. Note that big can also mean two telescopes far apart (big means >>>something like 1E10 meters). >>>This number doesn't take into account that the telescope has to gather >>>enough light to make a visible image. It is likely that the two telescopes >>>that are far apart still need to be much bigger than anything we have on >>>Earth to give a bright enough image. >> >>How about thousands of scopes over hundreds or thousands of miles? ;) If we >>can mass produce striped down hubble telescopes. ( Say simple optics for a >>couple million dollars each? Like clemmintine technology.) Launch a >>thousand scattered over hundreds of thousands of miles of space. > >OK let me show: > >RAYLEIGH'S CRITERIA: > >sin(theta)=1.22 lambda/a > >sin(theta) is approximately equal to theta > >theta is apparoximately equal to d/R > >d/R=1.22 lambda/a -> d=1.22 R lambda/a > > > theta =diffraction limited beam convergence angle > r =separation between light source and telescope > d =detail you like to be able to resolve (meters) > a =diameter of the aperture > lambda=wavelength to be observed > >You suggest an aperture of say 3000 miles = 5.556E6 meters >lambda of green light 530 nm= 5.3E-7 meters >distance of 10 ly = 9.46E16 m > >d=1.22 * 9.45E16 * 5.3E-7 / 5.556E6 = 1.1E4 metres > >So the maximum detail would be roughly 11 kilometers. Enough to see clouds, >mountains, lakes, (cities). But not enough to see trees, (villages). > >>>Besides that having more detail is useful for the mission, it might spark >>>imagination of Earth's population and get some extra money. >> >>The photos would spark public interest. > >Well, with your huge telescope, the best picture they could produce for an >Earth sized planet would be a total planet image of about 1200x1200 pixels. > >Timothy Actually The largest scope I mentioned was Hundreds of thousands of miles across. Thou the calculations are a good Idea. To a degree you could scale up the scopes to any size nessisary. How big would it need to be? Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 09:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2637" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "12:34:13" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "81" "Re: starship-design: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA05851 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:34:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA05826 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:34:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id MAA07249; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:34:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970703123409_1757081284@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2636 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Go Starwisps Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:34:13 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 6/30/97 7:32:59 AM, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> From: KellySt@aol.com >> >> In a message dated 6/29/97 (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> >> [...] >> >Sorry, I would not risk my life with such only theoretically >> >working technology, even with Kelly giving me his word of honor >> >that it will surely work for the whole round-trip... >> >> What choice do you have? If the robots take 16-20 years to report back >> that they made it. By then the ship would be too dated to use. >> >But at least we will have much more real and reliable data >to be more sure the improvements will work too. Assuming the drives are related. >> Besides. Just because they made it once. Doesn't mean you, or they, >> will make it the next trip. >> >Of course you are right. But, at least for me, it would be more >convincing that only your word of honor >(no offense intended - I presume you will give it in good faith). Never trust, verify the data and plan for the worst. >> [...] >> >Personally, I consider just the colonization to be the ultimate practical >> >reason for space exploration (near-sol or interstellar). >> >> Colonies are never made and maintained for in the interest in making >> colonies. >> >So what? >They are made e.g. for reasons of survival... Irrelavent in this case since they would be dependant on Sol for survival. Actually coplonies are never made for survival of the species type reasons eaither, and such a colony wouldn't help that significantly. >> >Hence my scenario: >> >- robotis probes (to test adequately the technology and obtain >> > necessary data (necessary for further stages, >> > not for mere scientific curiosity) that are >> > hard to obtain by other means; >> >- one-way, outpost-building missions to selected targets; >> >- if the returns are convincing -- the follow-up colonization missions. >> > >> >If there will be enough people wanting to go there and back again >> >(round-trip enthusiasts), they may go too, why not, provided they find >> >the money (and technology) to build them luxury tourist liners ;-) >> > >> >-- Zenon >> >> Now that would be one hell of a grand tour! ;) >> >Boring, with all this years in black space... > >> For only 500 million dollars >> you can really get away from it all! >> >I would rather pay half that (in practice it will cost even less) >and go one-way instead, sparing the rest of my fortune on >materials and equipment needed for building a nice little cottage >over there... > >-- Zenon Sorry, would be colonists are nuked from orbit as part of the decontamination proceedure. ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 09:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["750" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "12:34:23" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "30" "Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA05907 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:35:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout01.mail.aol.com (emout01.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.92]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA05875 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:34:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout01.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id MAA07914; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:34:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970703123420_1893001028@emout01.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 749 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, owner-starship-design@darkwing.uoregon.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars? Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:34:23 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 6/29/97 10:01:07 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >Greetings all: > >I think I should point out some reasons for why we should go to the >stars: > >1) Self Preservation >2) To honor the great explorers of the past >3) Its our nature to explore >4) To boldly go where no man has gone before... (Gene Roddenberry was >right about that) > >And most of all: >5) To learn all that is learnable. > >Does anyone need better reasons? If so, I have none. > >Kyle Mcallister 1 is reasonably irrelavent, certainly in the next few centuries. The others sum up to "we'ld like to". Agreed, but that never funded any project this size before, and is unlikely to in 2050. Besides, wsn't the question why colonize the stars? Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 09:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1074" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "12:34:05" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "29" "Re: starship-design: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA05976 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:35:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout14.mail.aol.com (emout14.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA05966 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:35:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout14.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id MAA19583; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:34:05 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970703123405_1826149828@emout14.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1073 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, lparker@cacaphony.net Subject: Re: starship-design: Go Starwisps Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:34:05 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 6/29/97 9:30:51 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >L. Parker wrote: >Lee Parker wrote: > >> 1) There are no nearby star travelling civilizations (possible) >> 2) There are no star travelling civilizations (unlikely) >> 3) Star travelling civilizations don't travel at near relativistic >> velocities >> 4) There is no life out there... >I have an addition: >5) The starfaring civilizations use gravity distortion FTL (like I >propose), which would produce little or no radiation. Then again, the >gamma ray bursters... > >Kyle Mcallister This leads back to the bigger SETI problem. If their were any star traveling civilizations; and if they went out, colonized/explored, and set out for the next stars. If the average 'wavefrount' of their exploreres moved at 1/10th light speed. They could cross the galaxy in a million years. Given they should have had billions of years to get here, and even slight biocontamination should leave noticable traces (their arn't any) then where the hell is everybody?! Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 10:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["430" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "11:13:11" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "17" "Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA21986 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 10:15:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA21973 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 10:15:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.74]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA00380 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 13:13:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BBEBB7.7DC4@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <970703123420_1893001028@emout01.mail.aol.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 429 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars? Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 11:13:11 -0700 KellySt@aol.com wrote: > 1 is reasonably irrelavent, certainly in the next few centuries. Not necessarily... > The others sum up to "we'ld like to". Agreed, but that never funded any project this > size before, and is unlikely to in 2050. I wouldn't be so sure. Things can happen if people get interested. > Besides, wsn't the question why colonize the stars? I suppose. But you have to go there first. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 11:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["955" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "20:15:03" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "25" "starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA16782 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:17:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA16721 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:17:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wjqS3-000HeSC; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:17:55 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 954 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 20:15:03 +0100 Lee, >You have a point about rich people might not want to leave Earth. But what about >if some group like the Southern Baptists have a big TV telethon to raise money >(something they are real good at) and build their own colony ship. OK, they might succeed to transport a few dozen of people, but then what? If you need to spent so much effort to get away from authority, there must be other easier solutions as well. I reason for development is not just being free of authority, it is more likely that "being not easy, but being hard" will spark development. Hard situations do mean that you have to be more inventive to survive (or to live in luxury). This inventiveness combined with new views of the universe is what may result in spectacular development. I doubt if the Baptists really will discover new ways. They may discover that hard labour is essential to survive there. Ha, I guess that would be a real discovery for them ;) Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 11:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["194" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "20:15:02" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "11" "starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA17086 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:18:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA17012 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:18:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wjqS1-000HeOC; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:17:53 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 193 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 20:15:02 +0100 Kyle commented: >Want to get there quick? Use my engine. T=2(D/a)^.5 That still means more than 6 years to travel 10 ly. (assuming 1g acceleration) Too much for colonisation purposes. Tim From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 11:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["439" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "12:41:14" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "13" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA26520 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:41:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA26507 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:41:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.74]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA04370 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:41:24 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BC0059.BB8@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 438 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 12:41:14 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > Kyle commented: > > >Want to get there quick? Use my engine. T=2(D/a)^.5 > > That still means more than 6 years to travel 10 ly. (assuming 1g acceleration) > Actually, its only 3.16 years to travel 10 ly. (The number I gave was for a round trip.) To Tau Ceti, one-way would be: 3.4496 years, round trip: 6.8992 years. The time makes more sense at farther distances. (1000ly 31.6 years to get there). From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 11:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["802" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "11:58:27" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "20" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA03187 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:57:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA03174 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:57:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA10393 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:56:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA19209; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:58:27 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707031858.LAA19209@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33BC0059.BB8@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33BC0059.BB8@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 801 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:58:27 -0700 kyle writes: > Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > > > Kyle commented: > > > > >Want to get there quick? Use my engine. T=2(D/a)^.5 > > > > That still means more than 6 years to travel 10 ly. (assuming 1g acceleration) > Actually, its only 3.16 years to travel 10 ly. (The number I gave was > for a round trip.) To Tau Ceti, one-way would be: 3.4496 years, round > trip: 6.8992 years. The time makes more sense at farther distances. > (1000ly 31.6 years to get there). Actually, I think your numbers are completely bogus because your equation isn't grounded in reality. Even if you are using some sort of FTL drive (and that FTL drive actually worked) it won't be immune to relativistic effects. FTL won't eliminate time dilation effects even if it did allow travel faster than light. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 12:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1793" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "21:23:12" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "55" "starship-design: Into detail" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA16184 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:26:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA16148 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:26:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-007.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wjrVz-000HhiC; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 21:26:03 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1792 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Into detail Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 21:23:12 +0100 Kelly, Regarding your questions: >Actually The largest scope I mentioned was Hundreds of thousands of miles >across. Ah, I must have read hundreds OR thousants. >Thou the calculations are a good Idea. To a degree you could scale >up the scopes to any size nessisary. How big would it need to be? Well a factor 2 bigger 300,000 miles instead of 3,000 miles will resolve objects of: d=1.22 * 9.45E16 * 5.3E-7 / 5.556E8 = 110 metres Besides Rayleigh's criteria, there is the point of brightness. To create a visible image on each separate telescope I need to know the minimal brightness (in Watt/m^2) that those CCD cameras can "see". I don't know this "minimal brightness", but assume that one needs at least 1 photon per pixel. Assuming that the planet we look at reflects 400 Watt per square meter (in the visible range), than at Sol we have only 400/(2 pi r^2) = 400/(2 pi 9.45E16^2) = 7.1E-33 Watt/m^2 (I use 2*pi*r^2 which is the surface of half a sphere over which the light is reflected) Luckely we didn't want 1 meter detail, but110 meter detail, so we have 110^2 more Watts here at Sol: (110^2)*7.1E-33=8.6E-29 Watt/m^2 A single photon has an energy of h*c/lambda=(1E-34)*(3E8)/(5.3E-7)=5.7E-20 Joule So that means about 1 photon per second per 6.6E8 square meter. Say we need 1E6 photons for a photograph (theoretical 1000x1000 pixels). We make a 1 second photograph. (Can't do longer, otherwise the planet has turned much more than 110 meters) Therfore we need an aperture surface of 1E6*6.6E8=6.6E14 square meters. Hmmm, that means a aperture radius of 14.5 kilometers. Most of my estimates have been quite optimistic, so it could well be that one needs a few orders bigger. Timothy P.S. If anyone has more hard data, I may be able to give a closer estimate. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 13:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1677" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "14:09:53" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "37" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA02911 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 13:10:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA02889 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 13:10:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.74]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA15385 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:10:02 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BC1520.30C8@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33BC0059.BB8@sunherald.infi.net> <199707031858.LAA19209@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1676 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 14:09:53 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > Actually, I think your numbers are completely bogus because your > equation isn't grounded in reality. Even if you are using some sort of > FTL drive (and that FTL drive actually worked) it won't be immune to > relativistic effects. FTL won't eliminate time dilation effects even if > it did allow travel faster than light. You obviously haven't studied Alcubierre's paper. I on the other hand am limited in my knowledge of relativity. Therefore that makes us equal. If you would like it, I can give you Miguel Alcubierre's E-mail address. Relativity does not concern FTL travel. As a matter of fact, it doesn't even consider it. Placing a limit on lightspeed does not forbid FTL travel at all. Besides, the speed of light CAN be increased by many factors. Newtonian physics deals with low velocity. Relativity high velocity (near-c). What deals with FTL? FTL apparently is possible. We haven't figured it out yet. I know everyone will eat me alive for using not-so-exact terminology, but I ask everyone: have you sent a MACROSCOPIC object up to relativistic speed? Here's where I really get demanding: With an engine attached? I believe the answer is no. See my point? Steve: If you want to disagree with FTL, thats fine with me. I don't take it personally. Frankly, I just keep working on it. As I've said earlier, I will be posting a design for an FTL-driven starship. My co-designers are: Ben Bakelaar, and Kevin Houston. Much help and thanks to Kelly Starks. If IPS listened to FTL theory, and LeRC listened to FTL theory, than LIT needs to. Kyle Mcallister "The suppresion of hard ideas is not the road to knowledge" -Carl Sagan From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 13:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["152" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "14:20:13" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "11" "starship-design: Alcubierre's E-mail address" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA06985 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 13:20:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA06935 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 13:20:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.74]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA20881 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:20:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BC178C.1E2C@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 151 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Alcubierre's E-mail address Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 14:20:13 -0700 Greetings: Well, I promised I'd post Miguel Alcubierre's E-mail address, so here it is: Moya@astro.cf.ac.uk It was in his webpage. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 14:25 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2799" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "14:26:22" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "66" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA02365 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:25:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA02353 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:25:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA01751; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:24:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA19547; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:26:22 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707032126.OAA19547@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33BC1520.30C8@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33BC0059.BB8@sunherald.infi.net> <199707031858.LAA19209@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33BC1520.30C8@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2798 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:26:22 -0700 kyle writes: > Steve VanDevender wrote: > > > Actually, I think your numbers are completely bogus because your > > equation isn't grounded in reality. Even if you are using some sort of > > FTL drive (and that FTL drive actually worked) it won't be immune to > > relativistic effects. FTL won't eliminate time dilation effects even if > > it did allow travel faster than light. > > You obviously haven't studied Alcubierre's paper. I on the other hand am > limited in my knowledge of relativity. Therefore that makes us equal. If > you would like it, I can give you Miguel Alcubierre's E-mail address. > > Relativity does not concern FTL travel. > As a matter of fact, it doesn't even consider it. > Placing a limit on lightspeed does not forbid FTL travel at all. Wrong. Did you actually read Ken Wharton's explanation of _why_ FTL is inconsistent with relativity? It's not something you can dismiss because you don't understand it. > Besides, the speed of light CAN be increased by many > factors. Which are not demonstrably relevant to space propulsion. > Newtonian physics deals with low velocity. Relativity high > velocity (near-c). What deals with FTL? FTL apparently is possible. We > haven't figured it out yet. Just as relativity did not invalidate Newtonian physics at low velocities, I do not expect any working FTL theory (should one be proven) to invalidate relativity in its domain. > I know everyone will eat me alive for using > not-so-exact terminology, but I ask everyone: have you sent a > MACROSCOPIC object up to relativistic speed? Here's where I really get > demanding: With an engine attached? I believe the answer is no. See my > point? Several astrophysical phenomena demonstrate relativistic effects on macroscopic objects that are completely consistent with the theoretical predictions. > Steve: If you want to disagree with FTL, thats fine with me. I don't > take it personally. Frankly, I just keep working on it. > > As I've said earlier, I will be posting a design for an FTL-driven > starship. My co-designers are: Ben Bakelaar, and Kevin Houston. Much > help and thanks to Kelly Starks. > If IPS listened to FTL theory, and LeRC listened to FTL theory, than LIT > needs to. If you spout nonsense in this forum, you will be called on it. That's all there is to it. > "The suppresion of hard ideas is not the road to knowledge" > -Carl Sagan You take this quote entirely out of the context and spirit in which it was offered. If you have a real FTL theory, then you can justify it by experiment. Until you've done so it's not science and it can't be used to build a working spacecraft. If you're feeling suppressed because I keep asking you to put up or shut up on your FTL imaginings, then too bad. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 15:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3733" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "16:22:01" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "89" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA24519 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 15:22:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA24484 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 15:22:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp2.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp5.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.77]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA11807; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 18:22:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BC3419.62AB@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33BC0059.BB8@sunherald.infi.net> <199707031858.LAA19209@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33BC1520.30C8@sunherald.infi.net> <199707032126.OAA19547@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 3732 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 16:22:01 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > Wrong. Did you actually read Ken Wharton's explanation of _why_ FTL is > inconsistent with relativity? It's not something you can dismiss > because you don't understand it. I read ALL my E-mail. Maybe it is inconsistent. There are things in nature that are incosistent with science (as we know it), but they still happen. > > Besides, the speed of light CAN be increased by many > > factors. > > Which are not demonstrably relevant to space propulsion. Untrue. Several ideas (which I won't even quote, since no one will listen) have shown such potential. Oh, Id like to ask: did blowing up the Bikini Atoll with an H-bomb show relavant potential for starship engines? Not at the time. See my point? > > > Newtonian physics deals with low velocity. Relativity high > > velocity (near-c). What deals with FTL? FTL apparently is possible. We > > haven't figured it out yet. > > Just as relativity did not invalidate Newtonian physics at low > velocities, I do not expect any working FTL theory (should one be > proven) to invalidate relativity in its domain. I don't wish relativity to be invalidated. But there can be additions. > > > I know everyone will eat me alive for using > > not-so-exact terminology, but I ask everyone: have you sent a > > MACROSCOPIC object up to relativistic speed? Here's where I really get > > demanding: With an engine attached? I believe the answer is no. See my > > point? > > Several astrophysical phenomena demonstrate relativistic effects on > macroscopic objects that are completely consistent with the theoretical > predictions. Oh, I see. I'm unsure of this: Do these phenomena have Engines? ONBOARD? > > > Steve: If you want to disagree with FTL, thats fine with me. I don't > > take it personally. Frankly, I just keep working on it. > > > > As I've said earlier, I will be posting a design for an FTL-driven > > starship. My co-designers are: Ben Bakelaar, and Kevin Houston. Much > > help and thanks to Kelly Starks. > > If IPS listened to FTL theory, and LeRC listened to FTL theory, than LIT > > needs to. > > If you spout nonsense in this forum, you will be called on it. That's > all there is to it. I have already been given permission to post my design. And my theories are NOT nonsense. Perhaps this trouble is due to the fact that I'm just a kid? > > > "The suppresion of hard ideas is not the road to knowledge" > > -Carl Sagan > > You take this quote entirely out of the context and spirit in which it > was offered. If you have a real FTL theory, then you can justify it by > experiment. Until you've done so it's not science and it can't be used > to build a working spacecraft. If you're feeling suppressed because I > keep asking you to put up or shut up on your FTL imaginings, then too > bad. Have we propelled objects, ARTIFICIAL objects up to .9XXC? No. Therefore that, if what you say is true, is not applicable to starship design. I know my ideas are speculative, but if we cannot speculate, then we are unworthy of being called scientists. No offense to anyone: You shoot down all my theories, but an even more speculative theory, the "cellular automaton universe", you do not attack. Something doesn't add up... I don't wish to dissapoint you, but you haven't made me feel like an unknowing idiot. Maybe I don't know as much as some in this group, maybe I'm not a colledge grad (yet), with a big degree behind me, but I'm not stupid. I'm beginning to feel a lot like Nicolaus Copernicus. And no, I won't shut up and be a nice little boy. I, unlike some people (I'm not refering to anyone in LIT, so don't get me wrong), am not easy to give up. Regards, Kyle R. Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 16:31 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1428" "Wed" "2" "July" "1997" "00:40:59" "-0500" "\"Kevin \\\"Tex\\\" Houston\"" "hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu" nil "36" "starship-design: Mutiny, " "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA18954 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:31:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id QAA18935 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:31:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from maroon.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Thu, 3 Jul 97 18:30:52 -0500 Received: from pub-22-b-158.dialup.umn.edu by maroon.tc.umn.edu; Thu, 3 Jul 97 18:30:51 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33B9E9EA.6CC0@maroon.tc.umn.edu> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33B984CC.6639E8F7@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kevin \"Tex\" Houston" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1427 From: "Kevin \"Tex\" Houston" Sender: owner-starship-design To: Starship design group Subject: starship-design: Mutiny, Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 00:40:59 -0500 Antonio C T Rocha wrote: > > Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > BTW. Writing this, I started wondering what would happen if people > > start a mutiny. > > > > Timothy > > Ask any naval officer. ?Probably the same that would have happened > before the 1800s: starvation adrift or survivors marooned on some barren > rock. With discipline and order, and luck and nearby infrastructure, > maybe - just maybe - they could go "pirate". Does humanity change? > Nonsense, They will be in direct line of sight the entire time. Communication might be slow, but it won't be a secret, everyone will know what happened. There'd be no way the mutineers could ever come back. That might happen on the hundreth trip, or maybe the tenth, but I don't think it will happen on the first. No matter whether we use FTL or STL, no one is going to be stopping in-between. that means to have a mutiny, it must happen in the target system. Since it's likely that we'd have a colony segment anyway, (in case of accident if for no other reason) then probably what would happen is the mutineers would be the ones who demanded to be left behind (and left alone) and let the loyalists go back to Earth. -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 16:31 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1804" "Wed" "2" "July" "1997" "00:27:04" "-0500" "\"Kevin \\\"Tex\\\" Houston\"" "hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu" nil "47" "starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA18958 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:31:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id QAA18939 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:31:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from maroon.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Thu, 3 Jul 97 18:30:48 -0500 Received: from pub-22-b-158.dialup.umn.edu by maroon.tc.umn.edu; Thu, 3 Jul 97 18:30:47 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33B9E6A8.31C0@maroon.tc.umn.edu> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199707011403.QAA01890@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kevin \"Tex\" Houston" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1803 From: "Kevin \"Tex\" Houston" Sender: owner-starship-design To: Starship design group Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 00:27:04 -0500 Zenon Kulpa wrote: > > > From: Antonio C T Rocha > > kyle wrote: > > > > > > I think I should point out some reasons for why we should go to the > > > stars: > > > > > > 1) Self Preservation > > > 2) To honor the great explorers of the past > > > 3) Its our nature to explore > > > 4) To boldly go where no man has gone before... (Gene Roddenberry was > > > right about that) > > > 5) To learn all that is learnable. > > > > > > Kyle Mcallister > > > > For the same reasons medieval Russian peasants fled to the woods? > > (Maybe this falls under .1.) > > - To get as far away as possible form: the Boyars orders, > > foremen and henchmen; from the Csars Tax Collectors and press gangs, and > > from the Zealots bonfires.... (and keep whatever honey I find, whatever > > furs I trap, enjoy whatever I build, feed on whatever I hunt or raise > > and sing whatever I feel like, when I feel like it). > > Sure its optimistic, but its a reason too. > > In other words: to open up frontiers. > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > That's the best, I think! > Sums up nicely all the particular reasons > like that listed by Kyle and others. > Though it is useful to elaborate the special cases too, > just to explain what this opening of frontiers actually > and practically means. Let's not forget "manifest destiny". After all, The immediate area (several LY) appears relatively empty, perhaps we are just life's way of spreading to other planets. Just as lungfish were life's way of gettign animals on land.. -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 16:55 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5577" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "16:55:32" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "114" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA26934 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:55:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA26905 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:55:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA22545 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:54:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA19918; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:55:32 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707032355.QAA19918@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33BC3419.62AB@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33BC0059.BB8@sunherald.infi.net> <199707031858.LAA19209@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33BC1520.30C8@sunherald.infi.net> <199707032126.OAA19547@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33BC3419.62AB@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 5576 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:55:32 -0700 kyle writes: > > > Besides, the speed of light CAN be increased by many > > > factors. > > > > Which are not demonstrably relevant to space propulsion. > > Untrue. Several ideas (which I won't even quote, since no one will > listen) have shown such potential. Oh, Id like to ask: did blowing up > the Bikini Atoll with an H-bomb show relavant potential for starship > engines? Not at the time. See my point? I guess you haven't seen the designs for interstellar spacecraft that actually use hydrogen bombs for thrust. The British Interplanetary Society floated one of the proposals. Just build a big durable plate, put your payload and a stack of H-bombs on one side, and every so often toss an H-bomb behind the plate and detonate it. Your point basically doesn't work because working hydrogen bombs, as a demonstration that it is possible to artificially induce nuclear fustion, _did_ show relevant potential for starship engines at that time. > > > I know everyone will eat me alive for using > > > not-so-exact terminology, but I ask everyone: have you sent a > > > MACROSCOPIC object up to relativistic speed? Here's where I really get > > > demanding: With an engine attached? I believe the answer is no. See my > > > point? > > > > Several astrophysical phenomena demonstrate relativistic effects on > > macroscopic objects that are completely consistent with the theoretical > > predictions. > > Oh, I see. I'm unsure of this: Do these phenomena have Engines? ONBOARD? These phenomena demonstrate that chunks of matter, not just subatomic particles, can travel at relativistic speeds and behave as predicted by theory. The crucial point is that relativistic motion is understood, experimentally verified, and even observed in natural phenomena. This makes it certain that it is possible to build a means to artificially accelerate objects to relativistic speeds. On the other hand, FTL is not theoretically supported, experimentally verified or naturally observed. This makes it pretty hard to argue that you can artificially induce FTL motion. Anyone who believes it is possible will have to demonstrate it working to be taken seriously in an engineering context. The summary of Alcubierre that I've seen (the abstract of his own paper) is that _if_ you could create "negative energy density", _then_ you could conceivably induce FTL motion. However, even he admits that such negative energy densities have not been created or observed, and that there is only a somewhat tenuous potential for them allowed by quantum mechanics. This is a long way from an engineering design, much farther than even exotic but physically accepted possibilities like antimatter propulsion. > > If you spout nonsense in this forum, you will be called on it. That's > > all there is to it. > > I have already been given permission to post my design. And my theories > are NOT nonsense. Perhaps this trouble is due to the fact that I'm just > a kid? I consider your theories too speculative to base a working enginnering design on. As far as I'm concerned your age doesn't matter, but the quality of your ideas does. > > > > > "The suppresion of hard ideas is not the road to knowledge" > > > -Carl Sagan > > > > You take this quote entirely out of the context and spirit in which it > > was offered. If you have a real FTL theory, then you can justify it by > > experiment. Until you've done so it's not science and it can't be used > > to build a working spacecraft. If you're feeling suppressed because I > > keep asking you to put up or shut up on your FTL imaginings, then too > > bad. > > Have we propelled objects, ARTIFICIAL objects up to .9XXC? No. Therefore > that, if what you say is true, is not applicable to starship design. I > know my ideas are speculative, but if we cannot speculate, then we are > unworthy of being called scientists. No offense to anyone: You shoot > down all my theories, but an even more speculative theory, the "cellular > automaton universe", you do not attack. Something doesn't add up... We have a rigorously tested set of physical laws that say it is entirely possible to accelerate mass to high fractions of c. These same laws don't allow mass to travel faster than c. > I don't wish to dissapoint you, but you haven't made me feel like an > unknowing idiot. Maybe I don't know as much as some in this group, maybe > I'm not a colledge grad (yet), with a big degree behind me, but I'm not > stupid. I'm beginning to feel a lot like Nicolaus Copernicus. And no, I > won't shut up and be a nice little boy. I, unlike some people (I'm not > refering to anyone in LIT, so don't get me wrong), am not easy to give > up. If FTL is possible and going to happen, then it won't happen just because you fervently wish it to be so. If you really believe it can be done, then build the device to do it. If you can even reliably make subatomic particles travel faster than c for extended periods in free space, then that will put FTL on a theoretical grounding more on a par with relativity. I don't expect you to "shut up and be a nice little boy", but I do think that any designs we come up with have to be rigorously justifiable. If a design requires technology that we don't have, then it needs to show how to create that technology. And if a design violates the known laws of physics, it has to show that those physics really are possible, hopefully in the same way that other scientific theories are verified: by experimental proof. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 20:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["766" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "21:53:57" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "25" "RE: starship-design: Re: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA11656 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:04:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA11611 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:04:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p10.gnt.com [204.49.68.215]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA19462 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:04:40 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC87FD.18EA1180@x2p2.gnt.com>; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:04:37 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC87FD.18EA1180@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Length: 765 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Go Starwisps Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 21:53:57 -0500 Kelly, We can't even determine telescopically whether MARS can support life and it is practically next door. I don't want to seem like I'm being facetious, but I think a resolution of 1 meter at 10 light years is reasonable. We might be able to spot gross life forms at that resolution. Lee Actually The largest scope I mentioned was Hundreds of thousands of miles across. Thou the calculations are a good Idea. To a degree you could scale up the scopes to any size nessisary. How big would it need to be? Kelly ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Science has 'explained' nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness." -- Aldous Huxley, 1925 From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 20:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["968" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "22:01:16" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "45" "RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA11819 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:04:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA11767 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:04:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p10.gnt.com [204.49.68.215]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA19471 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:04:48 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC87FD.1DF4F640@x2p2.gnt.com>; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:04:45 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC87FD.1DF4F640@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 967 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:01:16 -0500 Kelly, Assuming the drives are related. [L. Parker] I wouldn't assume any such thing, probably the opposite... Never trust, verify the data and plan for the worst. [L. Parker] That is the point of multiple approaces to verifying the data BEFORE sending people. >They are made e.g. for reasons of survival... Irrelavent in this case since they would be dependant on Sol for survival. Actually coplonies are never made for survival of the species type reasons eaither, and such a colony wouldn't help that significantly. [L. Parker] No, they are made for reasons of politics, of prestige and of oppression. Sorry, would be colonists are nuked from orbit as part of the decontamination proceedure. ;) Kelly [L. Parker] Your'e kidding I hope? Lee "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." -- Albert Einstein From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 20:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1650" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "22:07:23" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "43" "RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA21418 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:53:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA21407 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:53:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p26.gnt.com [204.49.68.231]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA22667 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:52:59 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8803.D963B140@x2p2.gnt.com>; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:52:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8803.D963B140@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1649 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:07:23 -0500 Timothy, They (the baptists) were just an example. But, I can imagine any number of groups coming up with reasons to leave in mass. Once you have made provision for a few dozen people it is only a small step to a few hundred, a little larger step to a few thousand. The first step is the biggest. There may even be an "economy of scale" that comes into play here. It may actually get easier to put together a mission of a few thousand people than a few dozen. Lee OK, they might succeed to transport a few dozen of people, but then what? If you need to spent so much effort to get away from authority, there must be other easier solutions as well. I reason for development is not just being free of authority, it is more likely that "being not easy, but being hard" will spark development. Hard situations do mean that you have to be more inventive to survive (or to live in luxury). This inventiveness combined with new views of the universe is what may result in spectacular development. I doubt if the Baptists really will discover new ways. They may discover that hard labour is essential to survive there. Ha, I guess that would be a real discovery for them ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO COOK AN EGG -- Physics Edition "If you tie one of these eggs to the end of a string and whirl it round rapidly, and suddenly stop, the movement may perhaps be converted into heat, and then . . ." "And then the egg will be cooked?" "Yes, if the rotation has been swift enough. But how do you get the stoppage without breaking the egg?" -- Jules Verne, The School for Crusoes From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 20:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["378" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "22:10:38" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "15" "RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA21442 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:53:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA21431 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:53:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p26.gnt.com [204.49.68.231]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA22677 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:53:07 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8803.DEB1B980@x2p2.gnt.com>; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:53:06 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8803.DEB1B980@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 377 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:10:38 -0500 Kyle, Actually, I would consider 3.16 years too long to go 1000 light years. How about 3 months? THAT is reasonable. Lee -----Original Message----- From: kyle [SMTP:stk@sunherald.infi.net] Sent: Thursday, July 03, 1997 2:41 PM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle << File: ATT00004.txt; charset = koi8-r >> From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 20:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["816" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "22:15:15" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "25" "RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA21464 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:53:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA21453 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 20:53:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p26.gnt.com [204.49.68.231]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA22683 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:53:11 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8803.E1944000@x2p2.gnt.com>; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:53:11 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8803.E1944000@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 815 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:15:15 -0500 Steve, Bogus or not, its not good enough for 1000 light years. For FTL to take 31 years is ridiculous. Might as well go sublight at relativistic velocities. It only take 12 years (ship time) that way. Lee Actually, I think your numbers are completely bogus because your equation isn't grounded in reality. Even if you are using some sort of FTL drive (and that FTL drive actually worked) it won't be immune to relativistic effects. FTL won't eliminate time dilation effects even if it did allow travel faster than light. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense." -- Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics, 1948. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 22:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["943" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "22:59:43" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA03587 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:00:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA03525 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 21:59:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp5.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp5.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.77]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA06168; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 00:59:58 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BC914F.51F4@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BC8803.E1944000@x2p2.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 942 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, "L. Parker" Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 22:59:43 -0700 L.Parker wrote: > > Bogus or not, its not good enough for 1000 light years. For FTL to take 31 years > is ridiculous. Might as well go sublight at relativistic velocities. It only take 12 > years (ship time) that way. > 31 years (earth time) to travel 1000 ly is not unreasonable. If you use relativistic travel, sure you'd get there in less SHIP time, but it'd take over 1000 years earth time. Try getting funding for that! 31 years ain't that long. You could go faster if you wanted to (just increase the ZPE generator section, explained in my upcoming design). My numbers aren't bogus, but come from "the man who started it all", Miguel Alcubierre. I'm simply applying his theory to design. He deserves the real credit. If you try going faster than 1g, even for FTL, its gonna be hard on the ship's integrity. So make the ship more durable, which increases weight, which increases energy usage...but not impossible. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 22:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["224" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "23:02:34" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "10" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA04035 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:02:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA04026 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:02:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp5.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp5.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.77]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA08470; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 01:02:48 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BC91FA.58F@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BC8803.DEB1B980@x2p2.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 223 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, "L. Parker" Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 23:02:34 -0700 L. Parker wrote: > > Kyle, > > Actually, I would consider 3.16 years too long to go 1000 light years. > How about 3 months? THAT is reasonable. But Captain, I canna go any faster! -Scotty (James Doohan) from Star Trek From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 3 22:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["656" "Thu" "3" "July" "1997" "23:07:11" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "15" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA05512 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:07:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA05501 for ; Thu, 3 Jul 1997 22:07:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp5.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp5.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.77]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA16619; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 01:07:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BC930F.F8B@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33BC0059.BB8@sunherald.infi.net> <199707031858.LAA19209@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33BC1520.30C8@sunherald.infi.net> <199707032126.OAA19547@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33BC3419.62AB@sunherald.infi.net> <199707032355.QAA19918@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 655 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 23:07:11 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > I guess you haven't seen the designs for interstellar spacecraft that > actually use hydrogen bombs for thrust. The British Interplanetary > Society floated one of the proposals. Just build a big durable plate, > put your payload and a stack of H-bombs on one side, and every so often > toss an H-bomb behind the plate and detonate it. Wasn't that called Orion? I think I saw something about that around here (in LIT database). Too bad about the Space Nuclear Test Ban. As Carl Sagan said: A nuclear pulse starship seems the best use for nuclear weapons that I can see. (Or blowing up pesky asteroids that come to close) From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 08:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["965" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "17:10:56" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "23" "starship-design: Re: Mutiny" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA18052 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:13:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA18041 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:13:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-021.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wkA3P-000GroC; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 17:13:47 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 964 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Mutiny Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 17:10:56 +0100 Kevin, >No matter whether we use FTL or STL, no one is going to be stopping >in-between. that means to have a mutiny, it must happen in the target >system. Since it's likely that we'd have a colony segment anyway, (in >case of accident if for no other reason) then >probably what would happen is the mutineers would be the ones who >demanded to be left behind (and left alone) and let the loyalists go >back to Earth. I didn't think people would start a mutiny "somewhere in between", I indeed thought that some might not want to leave the destination system (assuming they thought that they could survive there). If that group gets to big, it will make it impossible for the other group to go back to Earth. I could imagine that the groups would start a fight. However, I'd expect that the people choosen to make the trip would be quite rational and social. It is unlikely that they would start a fight. So either most would stay or most would leave. Tim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 08:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["939" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "17:10:58" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "25" "starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA18139 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:14:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA18119 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:14:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-021.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wkA3R-000GruC; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 17:13:49 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 938 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 17:10:58 +0100 Kelly wrote: >This leads back to the bigger SETI problem. If their were any star traveling >civilizations; and if they went out, colonized/explored, and set out for the >next stars. If the average 'wavefrount' of their exploreres moved at 1/10th >light speed. They could cross the galaxy in a million years. Given they >should have had billions of years to get here, and even slight >biocontamination should leave noticable traces (their arn't any) then where >the hell is everybody?! Why do you think the dinosaurs died out? Indeed biocontamination. The aliens tried to clean up most of the carcasses, that's why we find so few of them. Most of the small critters survived, because they usually have more and faster offspring and can thus adapt faster to such disasters. And you also know that many are abducted by aliens for genetic experiments. They are trying to match both our biologies. Wow, it sounds so logical ;) Tim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 08:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["504" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "17:11:00" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "19" "starship-design: MegaScope" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA18239 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:14:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA18225 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:14:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-021.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wkA3T-000GrqC; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 17:13:51 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 503 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: MegaScope Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 17:11:00 +0100 Lee & Kelly, Lee wrote: >We can't even determine telescopically whether MARS can support life and it is >practically next door. I don't want to seem like I'm being facetious, but I >think a resolution of 1 meter at 10 light years is reasonable. We might be >able to spot gross life forms at that resolution. This would mean an increase of 4 orders in aperture radius (compared to 110 meter detail) That would mean a radius of 150,000 kilometers. That seems a bit too large for my taste. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 08:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1133" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "17:11:01" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "26" "starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA18304 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:15:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA18287 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:15:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-021.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wkA3U-000GrsC; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 17:13:52 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1132 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 17:11:01 +0100 Lee, >They (the baptists) were just an example. But, I can imagine any number of >groups coming up with reasons to leave in mass. Once you have made provision >for a few dozen people it is only a small step to a few hundred, a little larger >step to a few thousand. The first step is the biggest. There may even be an >"economy of scale" that comes into play here. It may actually get easier to >put together a mission of a few thousand people than a few dozen. I understood it was an example (I wonder whether other more rational groups could collect that much money though). I believe your main point was to say that going to the stars was needed to get freedom. I tried to explain, why I thought that going to the stars to get freedom seemed to be the most expensive option of several others. (Eg. building a large spacestation or going to Mars may do the same) After that I tried to give another reason for going to the stars, namely to get a different worldview and to get into a hard environment (from where you can't easely escape). My guess was that the latter two may spark development and inventiveness. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 10:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1552" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "12:01:16" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "43" "RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA07319 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:04:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA07303 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:04:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p41.gnt.com [204.49.68.246]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA16497 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:04:00 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8872.59501100@x2p2.gnt.com>; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:03:56 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8872.59501100@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1551 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:01:16 -0500 Kelly and Timothy, This thread is getting TOO wierd. But Kelly has a point. Even assuming the worst imaginable odds for life, intelligent life, space faring life, etc. there should still be SOME indications. Lee -----Original Message----- From: Timothy van der Linden [SMTP:TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl] Sent: Friday, July 04, 1997 11:11 AM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens Kelly wrote: >This leads back to the bigger SETI problem. If their were any star traveling >civilizations; and if they went out, colonized/explored, and set out for the >next stars. If the average 'wavefrount' of their exploreres moved at 1/10th >light speed. They could cross the galaxy in a million years. Given they >should have had billions of years to get here, and even slight >biocontamination should leave noticable traces (their arn't any) then where >the hell is everybody?! Why do you think the dinosaurs died out? Indeed biocontamination. The aliens tried to clean up most of the carcasses, that's why we find so few of them. Most of the small critters survived, because they usually have more and faster offspring and can thus adapt faster to such disasters. And you also know that many are abducted by aliens for genetic experiments. They are trying to match both our biologies. Wow, it sounds so logical ;) Tim ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I die, I want to go peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather... not screaming like the people in his car. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 10:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1557" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "12:07:14" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "47" "RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA16313 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:50:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA16286 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:50:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p41.gnt.com [204.49.68.246]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA18591 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:50:45 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8878.E1CEA2C0@x2p2.gnt.com>; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:50:42 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8878.E1CEA2C0@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1556 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:07:14 -0500 Timothy, Yes, I understood what you were getting at. There are probably a great many possible reasons for different groups to choose to go to the stars (whether or not they can get back). Lee -----Original Message----- From: Timothy van der Linden [SMTP:TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl] Sent: Friday, July 04, 1997 11:11 AM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Lee I understood it was an example (I wonder whether other more rational groups could collect that much money though). I believe your main point was to say that going to the stars was needed to get freedom. I tried to explain, why I thought that going to the stars to get freedom seemed to be the most expensive option of several others. (Eg. building a large spacestation or going to Mars may do the same) After that I tried to give another reason for going to the stars, namely to get a different worldview and to get into a hard environment (from where you can't easely escape). My guess was that the latter two may spark development and inventiveness. Timothy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO COOK AN EGG -- Physics Edition "If you tie one of these eggs to the end of a string and whirl it round rapidly, and suddenly stop, the movement may perhaps be converted into heat, and then . . ." "And then the egg will be cooked?" "Yes, if the rotation has been swift enough. But how do you get the stoppage without breaking the egg?" -- Jules Verne, The School for Crusoes From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 10:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["785" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "12:10:05" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "32" "RE: starship-design: MegaScope" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA16355 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:50:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA16332 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:50:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p41.gnt.com [204.49.68.246]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA18600 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:50:49 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8878.E4D8D580@x2p2.gnt.com>; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:50:47 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8878.E4D8D580@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 784 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: MegaScope Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:10:05 -0500 Kelly and Timothy, Yes I know it seems like a large aperature, but the only thing you can detect with 110 m resolution is Giant Jovian Gas Whales... Lee -----Original Message----- From: Timothy van der Linden [SMTP:TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl] Sent: Friday, July 04, 1997 11:11 AM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: MegaScope Lee & Kelly, This would mean an increase of 4 orders in aperture radius (compared to 110 meter detail) That would mean a radius of 150,000 kilometers. That seems a bit too large for my taste. Timothy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It is not the vastness of the field of stars which deserves our admiration, it is man who has measured it." -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 15:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1184" "Sat" "5" "July" "1997" "00:38:41" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "32" "starship-design: Truely adventurous" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA18539 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 15:42:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA18515 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 15:42:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-007.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wkH2i-000F7tC; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 00:41:32 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1183 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Truely adventurous Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 00:38:41 +0100 Antonio, >>Yes, and since so much effort is involved there may be little room for >>people that are truely adventurous. > >That is interesting. I have trouble envisioning a bunch of stolid, >unadventurous humans undertaking to spend decades in space, in a small >single-minded (or single-goal) community, traveling through unknown >risks towards other unknown risks. With "truely adventurous" I meant that they cannot deviate much from the programme. The programme is setup for scientific discovery, not for following ones guts. >It seems that the trip would be one long Russian country-year: a long >cooped-up pass-the-time-and-try-not-to-strangle-your-wife winter and a >hectic short hard-working summer. You don't have to be truely adventurous to be an excellent scientist and person. (Unless you mean truely adventurous in thinking.) >What if there are by then the psycho-physiological tools capable of >ensuring that "mutinousity" is excised from the crew, would this >capability be used, specially inside a research institution such as LIT? >The Sponsors choice. It will be used, just like psychological profiling is used today for a lot of critical positions. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 15:43 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["581" "Sat" "5" "July" "1997" "00:38:39" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "21" "starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA18617 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 15:43:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA18592 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 15:43:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-007.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wkH2g-000F8XC; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 00:41:30 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 580 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 00:38:39 +0100 Lee, You wrote that Kelly had a point that if aliens exist, they should give away some hints. I ask you: Which hints? Why would the aliens not wear special suits that are near 100% bioshields? As many suggest, aliens might cause an unwanted psychological effect (apathy, hysteria) in most cultures. A reasonable alien race would not just make contact without thought. Therefore it is likely that they still hide. Why don't we see their energy signatures? I don't know, they may have tricks to hide those too. (Coming from behind Sol?) Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 20:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["428" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "22:21:20" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "14" "RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA03251 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:30:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA03234 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA08631 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 22:30:11 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC88C9.D476F0E0@x2p2.gnt.com>; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 22:30:09 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC88C9.D476F0E0@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 427 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 22:21:20 -0500 Timothy, No race can "magically" transition from chemical fueled rockets to undetectable, stealthy space warp drives instantly. There should be a gradual development through a range of different technologies, SOME of which should yield energy signatures which we can detect at great distances. You seem to be thinking biocontamination as in local here on Earth. I meant in the broader sense of interstellar. Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 20:38 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["565" "Fri" "4" "July" "1997" "21:38:42" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "16" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA04721 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:38:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA04706 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:38:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp17.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp17.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.89]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA25848; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 23:38:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BDCFD1.5E7F@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BC88C9.D476F0E0@x2p2.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 564 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, "L. Parker" Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 21:38:42 -0700 L. Parker wrote: > > Timothy, > > No race can "magically" transition from chemical fueled rockets to undetectable, > stealthy space warp drives instantly. There should be a gradual development > through a range of different technologies, SOME of which should yield energy > signatures which we can detect at great distances. If you used a drive similar to mine you _might_ detect the gravity waves. But whose to say they'd use my drive? Maybe space folding, or MM systems. Although as Steve pointed out, this should be detectable... who knows? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 4 22:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1151" "Sat" "5" "July" "1997" "01:56:48" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "36" "Re: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA23889 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 22:57:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout01.mail.aol.com (emout01.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.92]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA23869 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 22:57:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout01.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id BAA03932; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 01:56:48 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970705015647_-626541288@emout01.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1150 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 01:56:48 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/2/97 8:14:01 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Timothy and Antonio, > >Consider this scenario: > >A "sponsor" could be a government, a multi-national corporation or consortium, >or it could be a company formed by the colonists, specifically for the purpose >of equiping and sending a colony to another system. Something like "The Tau Ceti >Development Corporation", or the "Chartered Procyon Expedition". Such groups would >most likely be composed of people with common idealogies, interests or backgrounds. >After all, what else were the Puritans who sailed to Plymouth if not a private >company chartered for the express purpose of establishing a new colony. It is only >a matter of scale... > >Lee Parker The pilgrams and puritains are a bad example for you, but the idea of development corporations for colonies has been very successfull IF THEIR IS A MARKETABLE COMODITY! Given the transportation costs and time delays for interstellar travel. Its vitually inconceavable for 21st interstellar commerce. I.E. their is nothing that the colony could sell that would cover the costs of this project. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 15:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1291" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:40:08" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "30" "starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA11844 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 15:42:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA11828 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 15:42:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-004.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wkdXe-000EqhC; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:42:58 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1290 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 00:40:08 +0100 Lee, >No race can "magically" transition from chemical fueled rockets to undetectable, >stealthy space warp drives instantly. There should be a gradual development >through a range of different technologies, SOME of which should yield energy >signatures which we can detect at great distances. What signatures? Even our fusion designs that accelerate upto 0.5c radiate less than 1/1,000,000,000 the power of the Sun. And to be frank, we probably will only do a fusion design if we become really desperate to go to the stars. Besides this, the timespan the transition may take, is likely to be short compared to the time we have been looking more critical to the heavens. And assuming that there are aliens going back and forth, they are likely to have something like the "Federation of United Planets", where they will invite every advanced civilisation that is ready to join them. Joining probably means that certain scientific data is given to the new members. This will decrease the timespan of development even more. >You seem to be thinking biocontamination as in local here on Earth. I meant in >the broader sense of interstellar. I thought we were talking about "noticable traces". I wonder how we could have noticed biocontamination somewhere else than on Earth. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 19:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2931" "Sat" "5" "July" "1997" "21:14:10" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "56" "RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA20753 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 19:14:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA20743 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 19:14:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p17.gnt.com [204.49.68.222]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA21932 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:14:49 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8988.765D12E0@x2p2.gnt.com>; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:14:45 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8988.765D12E0@x2p2.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id TAA20745 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2930 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:14:10 -0500 Timothy, At some point in development every star faring race would have to pass through a point where they radiated some sort of energy that is distinctly not a natural product. Whether it is simply radio, neutrinos, or gravitons is simply irrelevant. SOMETHING must be radiated at some point in time that would give away their presence. The only alternative is to assume a degree of paranoia that I find totally unbelievable. The argument about our "potential" fusion drives is equally irrelevant. I wasn't speaking of anything so primitive. Same goes for timespan, remember Zeno's paradox? Apply the same line of reasoning to this argument. It doesn't matter how long we have been looking, there should be some trace visible in our sky AT EVERY SINGLE MOMENT. The Federation of United Planets is pure anthropomorphic garbage. To ascribe human values, motives and logic to an alien species is totally unreasonable and dangerous to boot. No, if they are indeed out there, they are either (all) much too far away, too few or more likely, both. Lee Parker -----Original Message----- From: Timothy van der Linden [SMTP:TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl] Sent: Saturday, July 05, 1997 6:40 PM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens Lee, What signatures? Even our fusion designs that accelerate upto 0.5c radiate less than 1/1,000,000,000 the power of the Sun. And to be frank, we probably will only do a fusion design if we become really desperate to go to the stars. Besides this, the timespan the transition may take, is likely to be short compared to the time we have been looking more critical to the heavens. And assuming that there are aliens going back and forth, they are likely to have something like the "Federation of United Planets", where they will invite every advanced civilisation that is ready to join them. Joining probably means that certain scientific data is given to the new members. This will decrease the timespan of development even more. >You seem to be thinking biocontamination as in local here on Earth. I meant in >the broader sense of interstellar. I thought we were talking about "noticable traces". I wonder how we could have noticed biocontamination somewhere else than on Earth. Timothy (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Ernst Eduard Kummer (1810-1893), a German algebraist, was rather poor at arithmetic. Whenever he had occasion to do simple arithmetic in class, he would get his students to help him. Once he had to find 7 x 9. "Seven times nine," he began, "Seven times nine is er -- ah --- ah -- seven times nine is. . . ." "Sixty-one," a student suggested. Kummer wrote 61 on the board. "Sir," said another student, "it should be sixty-nine." "Come, come, gentlemen, it can't be both," Kummer exclaimed. "It must be one or the other." From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1252" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:27" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "52" "Re: RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17749 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:58:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout03.mail.aol.com (emout03.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.94]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17738 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:58:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout03.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA00655; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:27 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005826_-158604162@emout03.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1251 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Go Starwisps Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:27 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 12:14:25 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly, > >>Assuming the drives are related. > > >[L. Parker] I wouldn't assume any such thing, probably the opposite... > > >>Never trust, verify the data and plan for the worst. > > >>[L. Parker] That is the point of multiple approaces to verifying the data >>BEFORE sending people. But a pre flight robot probe probably can't do this. >>>They are made e.g. for reasons of survival... > >>>Irrelavent in this case since they would be dependant on Sol for survival. >>> Actually coplonies are never made for survival of the species type reasons >>>eaither, and such a colony wouldn't help that significantly. > >[L. Parker] No, they are made for reasons of politics, of prestige and of >oppression. No, usually money. Sometimes escape from some powerfull group. Never heard of a successfull colony made for prestige. How could it be used for oppression? >> Sorry, would be colonists are nuked from orbit as part of the decontaminati on >> proceedure. ;) > >Kelly > >[L. Parker] Your'e kidding I hope? > >Lee Maybe, maybe not. Its an arguable policy to limit ecological damage to the planetfrom the colonists biology. Eiather way their dead. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["294" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:29" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "18" "Re: RE: starship-design: MegaScope" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17766 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com (emout04.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.95]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17748 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:58:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA26936; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:29 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005829_-991291778@emout04.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 293 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: MegaScope Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:29 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 9:08:41 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly and Timothy, > >Yes I know it seems like a large aperature, but the only thing you can detect with > >110 m resolution is Giant Jovian Gas Whales... > >Lee Or red woods, forests, grasslands, et.. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1080" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:32" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "32" "Re: RE: starship-design: Re: Go Starwisps" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17784 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout06.mail.aol.com (emout06.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.97]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17767 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout06.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA00130; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:32 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005832_26026494@emout06.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1079 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, owner-starship-design@darkwing.uoregon.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Re: Go Starwisps Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:32 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 4:21:50 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly, > >>We can't even determine telescopically whether MARS can support life and >>it is practically next door. I don't want to seem like I'm being facetious, >>but I think a resolution of 1 meter at 10 light years is reasonable. We >>might be able to spot gross life forms at that resolution. > >Lee I'm not sure if we couple determine if their was life on Mars with scopes. But we certainly haven't really tryied. But then at this range its alot cheaper to just send a damn ship. Over interstellar distences the cost ratios change a lot. Of course a lot depends on the biosphere. At 1 meter res Earth would be extreamly easy to verify as biologically active. You could even spectra scope the atmosphere for telltale chemistry with a lot less. Kelly >Actually The largest scope I mentioned was Hundreds of thousands of miles >across. Thou the calculations are a good Idea. To a degree you could scale >up the scopes to any size nessisary. How big would it need to be? > >Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2406" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:37" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "74" "Re: starship-design: Into detail" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17811 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17798 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA19361; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005836_303698558@emout07.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2405 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Into detail Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:37 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/3/97 10:53:10 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >Regarding your questions: > >>Actually The largest scope I mentioned was Hundreds of thousands of miles >>across. > >Ah, I must have read hundreds OR thousants. > >>Thou the calculations are a good Idea. To a degree you could scale >>up the scopes to any size nessisary. How big would it need to be? > >Well a factor 2 bigger 300,000 miles instead of 3,000 miles will resolve >objects of: > >d=1.22 * 9.45E16 * 5.3E-7 / 5.556E8 = 110 metres Not bad over interstellar distences. If you see anything really interesting you could probably get funding to scale up the scope array. A 4 order of magnitude improvement should get you 1 meter res. 8 order centimeter rest. Enough to study life forms (if any). Expensive, but not compared to the starship project. >Besides Rayleigh's criteria, there is the point of brightness. > >To create a visible image on each separate telescope I need to know the >minimal brightness (in Watt/m^2) that those CCD cameras can "see". >I don't know this "minimal brightness", but assume that one needs at least 1 >photon per pixel. > >Assuming that the planet we look at reflects 400 Watt per square meter (in >the visible range), than at Sol we have only 400/(2 pi r^2) = 400/(2 pi >9.45E16^2) = 7.1E-33 Watt/m^2 >(I use 2*pi*r^2 which is the surface of half a sphere over which the light >is reflected) > >Luckely we didn't want 1 meter detail, but110 meter detail, so we have 110^2 >more Watts here at Sol: (110^2)*7.1E-33=8.6E-29 Watt/m^2 > >A single photon has an energy of >h*c/lambda=(1E-34)*(3E8)/(5.3E-7)=5.7E-20 Joule > >So that means about 1 photon per second per 6.6E8 square meter. > >Say we need 1E6 photons for a photograph (theoretical 1000x1000 pixels). > >We make a 1 second photograph. (Can't do longer, otherwise the planet has >turned much more than 110 meters) The scope aray or post processors could compensate for the rotation. >Therfore we need an aperture surface of 1E6*6.6E8=6.6E14 square meters. > >Hmmm, that means a aperture radius of 14.5 kilometers. Most of my estimates >have been quite optimistic, so it could well be that one needs a few orders >bigger. > > >Timothy Ah, I make that 2.5e7 meters per side. How'd you get 14,500? Kelly >P.S. If anyone has more hard data, I may be able to give a closer estimate. From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["661" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:40" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "27" "Re: starship-design: MegaScope" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17829 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout08.mail.aol.com (emout08.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.23]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17812 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout08.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA06148; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:40 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005839_-2012103554@emout08.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 660 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: MegaScope Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:40 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 6:39:13 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Lee & Kelly, > >Lee wrote: > >>We can't even determine telescopically whether MARS can support life and it >is >>practically next door. I don't want to seem like I'm being facetious, but I >>think a resolution of 1 meter at 10 light years is reasonable. We might be >>able to spot gross life forms at that resolution. > >This would mean an increase of 4 orders in aperture radius (compared to 110 >meter detail) > >That would mean a radius of 150,000 kilometers. That seems a bit too large >for my taste. > >Timothy Hell, thats still in lunar orbit! Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1623" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:42" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "41" "Re: starship-design: Mutiny, " "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17849 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout09.mail.aol.com (emout09.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.24]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17826 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout09.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA10505; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:42 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005842_714306465@emout09.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1622 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Mutiny, Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:42 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/3/97 7:08:21 PM, hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Kevin "Tex" Houston) wrote: >Antonio C T Rocha wrote: >> >> Timothy van der Linden wrote: >> > BTW. Writing this, I started wondering what would happen if people >> > start a mutiny. >> > >> > Timothy >> >> Ask any naval officer. ?Probably the same that would have happened >> before the 1800s: starvation adrift or survivors marooned on some barren >> rock. With discipline and order, and luck and nearby infrastructure, >> maybe - just maybe - they could go "pirate". Does humanity change? >> > >Nonsense, They will be in direct line of sight the entire time. >Communication might be slow, but it won't be a secret, everyone will >know what happened. There'd be no way the mutineers could ever come >back. That might happen on the hundreth trip, or maybe the tenth, but I >don't think it will happen on the first. > >No matter whether we use FTL or STL, no one is going to be stopping >in-between. that means to have a mutiny, it must happen in the target >system. Since it's likely that we'd have a colony segment anyway, (in >case of accident if for no other reason) then >probably what would happen is the mutineers would be the ones who >demanded to be left behind (and left alone) and let the loyalists go >back to Earth. Problem with that. The ship couldn't possibly carry a self sustaining colony. So what kind of people would fight for the right to be left behind? Their only hope of survival would be with continued supply flights from home. Being sent to sustain mutineers? I would expect some serious hooks attached! Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1120" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:47" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "34" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17878 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout11.mail.aol.com (emout11.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.26]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17863 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout11.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA27778; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:47 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005846_-259264002@emout11.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1119 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:47 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 12:05:28 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly wrote: > >>This leads back to the bigger SETI problem. If their were any star traveling >>civilizations; and if they went out, colonized/explored, and set out for the >>next stars. If the average 'wavefrount' of their exploreres moved at 1/10th >>light speed. They could cross the galaxy in a million years. Given they >>should have had billions of years to get here, and even slight >>biocontamination should leave noticable traces (their arn't any) then where >>the hell is everybody?! > >Why do you think the dinosaurs died out? Indeed biocontamination. The aliens >tried to clean up most of the carcasses, that's why we find so few of them. >Most of the small critters survived, because they usually have more and >faster offspring and can thus adapt faster to such disasters. > >And you also know that many are abducted by aliens for genetic experiments. >They are trying to match both our biologies. > >Wow, it sounds so logical ;) > >Tim Tighter then the garbage the UFO buffs are buying. Kelly ;) From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1548" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:51" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "48" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17891 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17865 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA12775; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:51 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005850_-1695798751@emout12.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1547 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:51 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 6:38:09 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: > > >Lee, > >You wrote that Kelly had a point that if aliens exist, they should give away >some hints. > >I ask you: Which hints? > >Why would the aliens not wear special suits that are near 100% bioshields? If anything leaks out. It sould stand out like a neon sign. (HEY! This species of microbe doesn't use our kind of DNA!!) >As many suggest, aliens might cause an unwanted psychological effect >(apathy, hysteria) in most cultures. A reasonable alien race would not just >make contact without thought. Therefore it is likely that they still hide. This ones kind of a bogus prejudice on 20th century types part. Historiocally human cultures routinely ran into alien non person cultures. Ok, most were just the next tribe over. But to them that was as shockingly alien as aliens would be to us. The tribes seldom wen't hysterical and colapsed at the site. If they were in conflict they fought. If not they tried to trade or ignored one another. If ET drops in to D.C. next week I expect the same patterns. Besides. We never worry much about droping in on aborigional cultures. Do you expect every other culture in the galaxy to to be more paraniod and anal retentive then us? >Why don't we see their energy signatures? I don't know, they may have tricks >to hide those too. (Coming from behind Sol?) >From the power numbers Kyles been throwing about, that wouldn't be enough! ;) >Timothy Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2802" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:58:54" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "74" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA17917 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA17893 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA21521; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005853_1141657086@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2801 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:58:54 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 12:35:17 PM, arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br (Antonio C T Rocha) wrote: >Timothy van der Linden wrote: > >> Antonio wrote: >> >> >This _is_, after all, still the first phase: exploration. It does >> >require the funding and support (and submission to) a socially >> powerful >> >entity. >> >> Yes, and since so much effort is involved there may be little room for >> >> people that are truely adventurous. > >That is interesting. I have trouble envisioning a bunch of stolid, >unadventurous humans undertaking to spend decades in space, in a small >single-minded (or single-goal) community, traveling through unknown >risks towards other unknown risks. Until today, most people going on >such undertakings have gone for glory, plunder, novelty... or whatnot. >Glory doesn't change much and the "plunder" might consist in the >accumulation of new knowledge. If new worlds are found, that could also >mean new opportunities in the future.Unless... would we have by then >developed the capability of changing our personalities to meet our jobs? >Even so, how interesting is it to have un-adventurous types fending for >themselves alone, twenty+ light years from home? >It seems that the trip would be one long Russian country-year: a long >cooped-up pass-the-time-and-try-not-to-strangle-your-wife winter and a >hectic short hard-working summer. Good points! Crewing such a trip would be very difficult. Adrenaline types wouldn't work, and the unimaginative wouldn't be worth sending. Guess you have to hire professional interested in advancing their fields. "Spend your career on a trip to the stars and rewrite the books when you get back. Leasurly low stress flight out. Plenty of time for review and study. Low presure enviornment. etc.. apply at.." Hum, maybe lazy collage proffs should apply? ;) >> >> BTW. Writing this, I started wondering what would happen if people >> >> >> start a mutiny. >> > >> >Ask any naval officer. ?Probably the same that would have happened >> >before the 1800s: starvation adrift or survivors marooned on some >> barren >> >rock. With discipline and order, and luck and nearby infrastructure, >> >maybe - just maybe - they could go "pirate". Does humanity change? >> >> Ah, yes I could have thought of that myself. I guess I was too >> intrigued >> (not inspired ;) by the idea itself. >> >> Timothy > >What if there are by then the psycho-physiological tools capable of >ensuring that "mutinousity" is excised from the crew, would this >capability be used, specially inside a research institution such as LIT? >The Sponsors choice. > >Antonio C Rocha Hum. Well we could keep the access codes to the command and control computers. Don't want to play? We lock the food lockets and depresurise the access tunnels. ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["980" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:59:10" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "36" "Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA18182 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA18128 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:59:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA11631; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:59:10 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005909_191935872@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 979 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars? Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:59:10 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/3/97 10:49:15 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: > >> 1 is reasonably irrelavent, certainly in the next few centuries. > >Not necessarily... Think if any senerio where and extra solar colony (especially one dependant on suplies from home) could aid the survival of humanity over the next few centuries. >> The others sum up to "we'ld like to". Agreed, but that never funded any >>project this size before, and is unlikely to in 2050. > >I wouldn't be so sure. Things can happen if people get interested. A tens of billions of dollars (low estimate) project? Those don't happen unless their is big money to be made quickly, or a critical need. Nieather seems applicable here. >> Besides, wasn't the question why colonize the stars? > >I suppose. But you have to go there first. > >Kyle Mcallister But you won't start a colony until you come up with a reason, whgich obviously can't preceed a first flight. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 22:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1410" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:59:02" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "39" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA18668 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 22:00:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout17.mail.aol.com (emout17.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.43]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA18604 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 22:00:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout17.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA12999; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:59:02 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005901_-2063887327@emout17.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1409 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, lparker@cacaphony.net Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:59:02 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 5:19:58 AM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >L.Parker wrote: >> >> Bogus or not, its not good enough for 1000 light years. For FTL to take 31 years >> is ridiculous. Might as well go sublight at relativistic velocities. It only >take 12 >> years (ship time) that way. >> > >31 years (earth time) to travel 1000 ly is not unreasonable. If you use >relativistic travel, sure you'd get there in less SHIP time, but it'd >take over 1000 years earth time. Try getting funding for that! 31 years >ain't that long. > >You could go faster if you wanted to (just increase the ZPE generator >section, explained in my upcoming design). My numbers aren't bogus, but >come from "the man who started it all", Miguel Alcubierre. I'm simply >applying his theory to design. He deserves the real credit. > >If you try going faster than 1g, even for FTL, its gonna be hard on the >ship's integrity. So make the ship more durable, which increases weight, >which increases energy usage...but not impossible. > >Kyle Mcallister More critical then ships integroty would be crew health. Prolonged high G would be great for the cardio-vascular system, but be pretty exausting for the crew. Also, would that be applicable? As I remember Alcubierre concept involved moving a pocket of spacetime. That would not involve acceleration in the normal sence, so no g force on the crew or ship. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 5 22:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4810" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "00:59:07" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "114" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA18776 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 22:00:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA18728 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 22:00:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA02156; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:59:07 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970706005906_538482432@emout19.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4809 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, stevev@efn.org Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:59:07 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/4/97 11:38:02 AM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >Steve VanDevender wrote: > >> Wrong. Did you actually read Ken Wharton's explanation of _why_ FTL is >> inconsistent with relativity? It's not something you can dismiss >> because you don't understand it. > >I read ALL my E-mail. Maybe it is inconsistent. There are things in >nature that are incosistent with science (as we know it), but they still >happen. > >> > Besides, the speed of light CAN be increased by many >> > factors. >> >> Which are not demonstrably relevant to space propulsion. > >Untrue. Several ideas (which I won't even quote, since no one will >listen) have shown such potential. Oh, Id like to ask: did blowing up >the Bikini Atoll with an H-bomb show relavant potential for starship >engines? Not at the time. See my point? >> >> > Newtonian physics deals with low velocity. Relativity high >> > velocity (near-c). What deals with FTL? FTL apparently is possible. We >> > haven't figured it out yet. >> >> Just as relativity did not invalidate Newtonian physics at low >> velocities, I do not expect any working FTL theory (should one be >> proven) to invalidate relativity in its domain. > >I don't wish relativity to be invalidated. But there can be additions. > >> >> > I know everyone will eat me alive for using >> > not-so-exact terminology, but I ask everyone: have you sent a >> > MACROSCOPIC object up to relativistic speed? Here's where I really get >> > demanding: With an engine attached? I believe the answer is no. See my >> > point? >> >> Several astrophysical phenomena demonstrate relativistic effects on >> macroscopic objects that are completely consistent with the theoretical >> predictions. > >Oh, I see. I'm unsure of this: Do these phenomena have Engines? ONBOARD? > >> >> > Steve: If you want to disagree with FTL, thats fine with me. I don't >> > take it personally. Frankly, I just keep working on it. >> > >> > As I've said earlier, I will be posting a design for an FTL-driven >> > starship. My co-designers are: Ben Bakelaar, and Kevin Houston. Much >> > help and thanks to Kelly Starks. >> > If IPS listened to FTL theory, and LeRC listened to FTL theory, than LIT >> > needs to. >> >> If you spout nonsense in this forum, you will be called on it. That's >> all there is to it. > >I have already been given permission to post my design. And my theories >are NOT nonsense. Perhaps this trouble is due to the fact that I'm just >a kid? > >> >> > "The suppresion of hard ideas is not the road to knowledge" >> > -Carl Sagan >> >> You take this quote entirely out of the context and spirit in which it >> was offered. If you have a real FTL theory, then you can justify it by >> experiment. Until you've done so it's not science and it can't be used >> to build a working spacecraft. If you're feeling suppressed because I >> keep asking you to put up or shut up on your FTL imaginings, then too >> bad. > >Have we propelled objects, ARTIFICIAL objects up to .9XXC? No. Therefore >that, if what you say is true, is not applicable to starship design. I >know my ideas are speculative, but if we cannot speculate, then we are >unworthy of being called scientists. No offense to anyone: You shoot >down all my theories, but an even more speculative theory, the "cellular >automaton universe", you do not attack. Something doesn't add up... > >I don't wish to dissapoint you, but you haven't made me feel like an >unknowing idiot. Maybe I don't know as much as some in this group, maybe >I'm not a colledge grad (yet), with a big degree behind me, but I'm not >stupid. I'm beginning to feel a lot like Nicolaus Copernicus. And no, I >won't shut up and be a nice little boy. I, unlike some people (I'm not >refering to anyone in LIT, so don't get me wrong), am not easy to give >up. > >Regards, >Kyle R. Mcallister The "Copernicus" line was a bit over the top. As to why your geting pounded. Its not particularly that your a kid, but: 1- FTL violates a lot of people assumptions about physics. It doesn't violate the laws of physics, just peoples assumptions. But thats a great way to generate a lot of heat fast. (Just imagine that flack the origionator of the theory is getting.) 2- Your concept is extreamly iffy for a ship engineering design. Which is the nominal goal of the group. Its a speculation, on a possible aplication of a unproven theory. Certainly wourth talking about. But really skating on thin conceptual ice. We've been trying to stay on very practical ground and have avoided concepts that are just theories (regardless of how usefull they would have been). In general the concepts are worth discusion and review, and addition to the site(s). But they are a definaet lightning rod. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 6 11:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["879" "Sun" "6" "July" "1997" "12:29:00" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA01189 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 11:29:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA01155 for ; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 11:29:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp4.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp4.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.76]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA05136 for ; Sun, 6 Jul 1997 14:29:15 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33BFF1FB.A50@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <970706005901_-2063887327@emout17.mail.aol.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 878 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Why go to the stars? - Kyle Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 12:29:00 -0700 KellySt@aol.com wrote: > > More critical then ships integroty would be crew health. Prolonged high G > would be great for the cardio-vascular system, but be pretty exausting for > the crew. > > Also, would that be applicable? As I remember Alcubierre concept involved > moving a pocket of spacetime. That would not involve acceleration in the > normal sence, so no g force on the crew or ship. > Well, the gravity wouldn't be felt by the ship or crew, but the tidal distortions on the drive segments certainly would be severe. I figure we'll just forget the plates and use lasers of X-high power (produced by the ZPF) in front for gravity generation, and in back we'll use the ZPF plates. If you accelerated at say, 5g's you'd get there in 1.5427 years (both time). To clarify this, it is similar to Alcubierre's theory, just from a design standpoint. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 7 05:49 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["897" "Mon" "7" "July" "1997" "09:33:56" "-0300" "Antonio C T Rocha" "arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br" nil "34" "Re: starship-design: Truely adventurous" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA17920 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 05:49:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.1]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA17909 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 05:49:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Metacor.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (dl2022-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.243.22]) by srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (8.8.5/SCA-6.6) with ESMTP id MAA22373 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 12:44:34 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C0E233.2D2E8F5@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Organization: is unrealistic X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Antonio C T Rocha Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 896 From: Antonio C T Rocha Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Truely adventurous Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 09:33:56 -0300 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > Antonio, > > >>Yes, and since so much effort is involved there may be little room > for > >>people that are truely adventurous. > > (...) > (...) > >It seems that the trip would be one long Russian country-year: a long > > >cooped-up pass-the-time-and-try-not-to-strangle-your-wife winter and > a > >hectic short hard-working summer. > > You don't have to be truely adventurous to be an excellent scientist > and > person. (Unless you mean truely adventurous in thinking.) > (...) > > Timothy It is one of my intellectual limitations that : I cannot imagine or accept an un-adventurous or "un-romantic" scientist. Meaning, one that is not inebriated and elevated by the contemplation of knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge. The "book-keepers of science" should not be confused with scientists. Sorry, but that is one of my chared-raw nerves. Antonio From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 7 06:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1691" "Mon" "7" "July" "1997" "15:31:10" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "45" "starship-design: Re: Into detail" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA24084 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 06:33:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA24074 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 06:33:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-025.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlDvX-000Gq9C; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 15:34:03 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1690 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Into detail Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 15:31:10 +0100 Kelly, >>Well a factor 2 bigger 300,000 miles instead of 3,000 miles will resolve >>objects of: >> >>d=1.22 * 9.45E16 * 5.3E-7 / 5.556E8 = 110 metres > >Not bad over interstellar distences. If you see anything really interesting >you could probably get funding to scale up the scope array. A 4 order of >magnitude improvement should get you 1 meter res. 8 order centimeter rest. > Enough to study life forms (if any). > >Expensive, but not compared to the starship project. Resolution power doesn't seem to be the biggest problem, it "merely" needs a few small telescopes that are far apart. More essential is the brightness problem for which we would need really huge telescopes that can be more expensive that a starship project. >>We make a 1 second photograph. (Can't do longer, otherwise the planet has >>turned much more than 110 meters) > >The scope aray or post processors could compensate for the rotation. Yes, that might work. so you may indeed decrease the telescope size a bit if you can make longer exposures. >>Therfore we need an aperture surface of 1E6*6.6E8=6.6E14 square meters. >> >>Hmmm, that means a aperture radius of 14.5 kilometers. Most of my estimates >>have been quite optimistic, so it could well be that one needs a few orders >>bigger. > >Ah, I make that 2.5e7 meters per side. How'd you get 14,500? I used a circular aperture, but also accidentally devided by 1E6 instead of 1E3 to get kilometers. The mistake was mine, so the aperture radius has to be 1000 times bigger. Not a trivial upscale! Regarding resolving 1 meter details, I'd rather not think about that anymore. Multiple exploring missions would be cheaper and easier to do. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 7 17:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1027" "Mon" "7" "July" "1997" "18:57:04" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "24" "starship-design: Raise the limit? " "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA16099 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 17:57:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA16044 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 17:57:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp7.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp7.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.79]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA09849 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 20:57:05 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C19E6F.E17@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1026 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Raise the limit? Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 18:57:04 -0700 Greetings: I was wondering about FTL travel, and ask myself "why do we really need it?" To get somewhere fast. Why not abandon FTL until physics gets that far and simply travel without traversing the space between two points? You could theoretically travel from any point to any point without having to exceed the speed of light, AND taking a very short travel time in earth's reference point. One other possibility: the speed of light can be raised, so why bother with FTL? Just boost the speed of light to say, 150,000,000,000 m/sec? One question: how much energy is needed? One last thing: relativity does NOT (for me) explain superluminal velocity of quasars. I know the velocity trick, but isn't that contradiction with the Lorentz transformation addition of velocity? Maybe they just didn't want to get into something real hard to explain. Or maybe I misunderstood. Kyle Mcallister P.S.: Please don't hassle me with this being to speculative: we have recently entertained even more speculative of ideas than this. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 7 18:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1235" "Mon" "7" "July" "1997" "20:28:50" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "31" "starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA25858 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 18:29:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id SAA25841 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 18:29:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p47.gnt.com [204.49.68.252]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA32553 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 20:29:09 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8B14.6A150320@x2p45.gnt.com>; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 20:29:05 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8B14.6A150320@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Length: 1234 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 20:28:50 -0500 I have been thinking about this telescope idea, apertures and resolving power. The recent launch of HALCA in February made me wonder. HALCA works in concert with ground-based telescopes, allowing astronomers to simulate a dish with a diameter as large as 28,000 kilometers and a resolving power-the ability to detect fine details-more than 100 times higher than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. Of course it is limited by the radius of its orbit plus or minus one earth diameter. So the question is: what exactly is the distance between the leading LaGrange point and the trailing LaGrange point? It would be awfully convenient if it was 300,000 km.... Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Two people are traveling in a balloon over a landscape unknown to them. "Where are we?" one calls down to a passerby. The passerby looks carefully at them and finally yells back, "You're on a balloon!" "He must be a mathematician," says one of the travelers to the other. "Why is that?" "First, he thought awhile before answering. Second, his answer is absolutely precise. And third, it's utterly useless." From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 7 18:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2001" "Mon" "7" "July" "1997" "21:33:45" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "58" "Re: starship-design: Re: Into detail" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA28056 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 18:34:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout01.mail.aol.com (emout01.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.92]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id SAA28045 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 18:34:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout01.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id VAA28993; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 21:33:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970707213344_-2011930308@emout01.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2000 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Into detail Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 21:33:45 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/7/97 7:35:49 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >>>Well a factor 2 bigger 300,000 miles instead of 3,000 miles will resolve >>>objects of: >>> >>>d=1.22 * 9.45E16 * 5.3E-7 / 5.556E8 = 110 metres >> >>Not bad over interstellar distences. If you see anything really interesting >>you could probably get funding to scale up the scope array. A 4 order of >>magnitude improvement should get you 1 meter res. 8 order centimeter rest. >> Enough to study life forms (if any). >> >>Expensive, but not compared to the starship project. > >Resolution power doesn't seem to be the biggest problem, it "merely" needs a >few small telescopes that are far apart. >More essential is the brightness problem for which we would need really huge >telescopes that can be more expensive that a starship project. > >>>We make a 1 second photograph. (Can't do longer, otherwise the planet has >>>turned much more than 110 meters) >> >>The scope aray or post processors could compensate for the rotation. > >Yes, that might work. so you may indeed decrease the telescope size a bit if >you can make longer exposures. > >>>Therfore we need an aperture surface of 1E6*6.6E8=6.6E14 square meters. >>> >>>Hmmm, that means a aperture radius of 14.5 kilometers. Most of my estimates >>>have been quite optimistic, so it could well be that one needs a few orders >>>bigger. >> >>Ah, I make that 2.5e7 meters per side. How'd you get 14,500? > >I used a circular aperture, but also accidentally devided by 1E6 instead of >1E3 to get kilometers. The mistake was mine, so the aperture radius has to >be 1000 times bigger. Not a trivial upscale! > >Regarding resolving 1 meter details, I'd rather not think about that >anymore. Multiple exploring missions would be cheaper and easier to do. > >Timothy Given the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars even one of these mission would probably take. I seriously doubt that a meter res scope would be more costly. Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 7 19:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1191" "Mon" "7" "July" "1997" "20:00:07" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "24" "starship-design: Telescopes the size of worlds?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA04672 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 19:00:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA04645 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 19:00:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa3dsp7.gpt.infi.net (pa3dsp7.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.79]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA21530 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 22:00:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C1AD36.3D@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1190 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Telescopes the size of worlds? Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 20:00:07 -0700 Wait a minute! We're talking about telescopes the size of planets here. Where are you gonna get that much money to build these? It WILL be more expensive than a starship, because of the immense size, stabilization systems, power systems, etc. This may not seem like a problem, but then you have repairs when a cloud of debris comes careening through the thing, which pretty much makes useless that telescope. Another problem: these things will get so big, they'll warp under their own weight. If anything hits this thing, it will become destabilized, and when you try to thrust it back to stability the thing will probably buckle from stress. If you really want to build these (I don't recommend it), at least build them in an array, with many smaller scopes. These ideas are great to wonder about, but are impractical: for the same price you can go there. Why then do you spend $100B+ on limited scanning scopes, when you can go? I ask you: how do you get an electron micrograph of bacteria with a telescope? theoretically you could, but it would be so massive... And you say my ideas are far-out?? Maybe my ideas defy current understanding, but they are practical. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 7 22:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["959" "Mon" "7" "July" "1997" "21:31:58" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "21" "starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA21014 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 22:08:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA21003 for ; Mon, 7 Jul 1997 22:08:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p29.gnt.com [204.49.68.234]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA13002 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 00:08:43 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8B33.16752460@x2p45.gnt.com>; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 00:08:39 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8B33.16752460@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 958 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 21:31:58 -0500 It seems I missed something, apparently there was an error in someone's math? First of all, it starts out in miles and ends up in meters, then there seems to be a problem with orders of magnitude? Not trying to pick, but would someone please tell me what either the correct equation or the correct answer is? Actually, I think I would prefer the equation. I want to apply it to both LaGrange and Lunar orbit data and see what sort of resolution we are talking about. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "I am afraid the knockabout comedy of modern atomic physics is not very tender towards our aesthetic ideals. The stately drama of stellar evolution turns out to be more like the hair-breadth escapades in the films. The music of the spheres has a painful suggestion of -- jazz." -- Arthur S. Eddington, Stars and Atoms, 1926. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 04:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["422" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "13:43:36" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "14" "starship-design: Superluminal velocity of quasars" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA09968 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:46:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA09958 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:46:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlYj1-000G0mC; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 13:46:31 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 421 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Superluminal velocity of quasars Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 13:43:36 +0100 Kyle wrote: >One last thing: relativity does NOT (for me) explain superluminal >velocity of quasars. I know the velocity trick, but isn't that >contradiction with the Lorentz transformation addition of velocity? >Maybe they just didn't want to get into something real hard to explain. >Or maybe I misunderstood. Read the following, it might answer some questions: http://www.achilles.net/~jtalbot/news/3C345.html Tim From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 04:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1709" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "13:43:20" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "45" "starship-design: Aliens, Why don't we see them?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA10004 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:46:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA09994 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:46:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlYil-000G0jC; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 13:46:15 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1708 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Aliens, Why don't we see them? Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 13:43:20 +0100 Lee, >At some point in development every star faring race would have to pass >through a point where they radiated some sort of energy that is distinctly >not a natural product. Whether it is simply radio, neutrinos, or gravitons >is simply irrelevant. SOMETHING must be radiated at some point in time that >would give away their presence. The only alternative is to assume a degree >of paranoia that I find totally unbelievable. > >The argument about our "potential" fusion drives is equally irrelevant. I >wasn't speaking of anything so primitive. Same goes for timespan, remember >Zeno's paradox? I wouldn't know which Paradox of Zeno you have in mind. >Apply the same line of reasoning to this argument. It doesn't matter how long >we have been looking, there should be some trace visible in our sky AT EVERY >SINGLE MOMENT. Isn't there a lot of controversy about this reasoning? I'd guess the biggest question is whether a technological lifeform can arise quick enough to escape death by global catastrophes. >The Federation of United Planets is pure anthropomorphic garbage. To ascribe >human values, motives and logic to an alien species is totally unreasonable >and dangerous to boot. Ah, human values cannot be ascribed to aliens, but their (technical) development can be assumed to be similar? Please explain this apparent discrepancy. Having a union is not just matter of value, it is a matter of savety and way of speeding up development by sharing information. >No, if they are indeed out there, they are either (all) much too far away, too >few or more likely, both. Hmmm, if you use Zeno's paradox (or whatever you mean with that), then I can't understand the line above. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 04:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2599" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "13:43:23" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "57" "starship-design: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA10045 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:47:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA10033 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:47:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlYio-000G0hC; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 13:46:18 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2598 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 13:43:23 +0100 Kelly, >>Why would the aliens not wear special suits that are near 100% bioshields? > >If anything leaks out. It sould stand out like a neon sign. (HEY! This >species of microbe doesn't use our kind of DNA!!) If a few bacteria leak out, they may very well be killed before they can replicate and mutate. And if indeed aliens are in abundance, they may have infected Earth long ago. Furthermore, there is speculation that microbes come to Earth by meteorites and dirty snowballs every day. >>As many suggest, aliens might cause an unwanted psychological effect >>(apathy, hysteria) in most cultures. A reasonable alien race would not just >>make contact without thought. Therefore it is likely that they still hide. > >This ones kind of a bogus prejudice on 20th century types part. > Historiocally human cultures routinely ran into alien non person cultures. > Ok, most were just the next tribe over. But to them that was as shockingly >alien as aliens would be to us. The tribes seldom wen't hysterical and >colapsed at the site. If they were in conflict they fought. If not they >tried to trade or ignored one another. You may have a point about older cultures. But I believe that for many today the world view would change more than they could cope with. My best guess is, that old civilisations believed in miracles, so a strange species wasn't much of a shock. (I believe that several European explorers where seen as gods) A reason to believe that mentality has changed too is that not so many centuries ago, the fear for the unknown was really bad (witchhunt). One may wonder why old civilisations never benefited from alien intervention. Maybe they did, but where not interested in technological progres. Or maybe they didn't because aliens may have little incentive to help us out. In one of our private discussions you also mentioned apathy as a result of seeing that others are much more advanced and discovered long ago what you only held possible in your dreams. Also for quite some time, sudden balance shifts in economical and military power would have been rather critical. This can't be bogus, otherwise I'd see little reason for certain programs to be secret (stealth planes). >Besides. We never worry much about droping in on aborigional cultures. The reason for us dropping in on aborigional cultures is usually for resources. What happened to the aboriginals seemed to be less important with the result that it disappeared rather fast. Aliens are likely to have little interest in resources on Earth, so contacting us would likely only create problems. Tim From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 04:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["587" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "13:43:28" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "20" "starship-design: Re: Truely adventurous" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA10130 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:47:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA10120 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:47:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlYit-000G0eC; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 13:46:23 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 586 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Truely adventurous Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 13:43:28 +0100 Antonio, >It is one of my intellectual limitations that : I cannot imagine or >accept an un-adventurous or "un-romantic" scientist. I know little about you, so I wouldn't know where to start making comparisons that may clarify matters. Are you a scientist yourself? If so in what direction/subjects? >Meaning, one that >is not inebriated and elevated by the contemplation of knowledge and the >acquisition of knowledge. The "book-keepers of science" should not be >confused with scientists. It is not directly "un-adventurous" what I meant, it is more "controlled adventure". Tim From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 04:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["171" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "13:49:40" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "9" "starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA10440 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:52:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA10418 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 04:52:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlYot-000G0mC; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 13:52:35 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 170 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 13:49:40 +0100 Lee wrote: >It seems I missed something, apparently there was an error in someone's math? I'll sent you a compiled letter, that hopefully resolves your problems. Tim From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 06:03 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1588" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "07:37:54" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "41" "RE: starship-design: Aliens, Why don't we see them?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA20228 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 06:03:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA20218 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 06:03:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p16.gnt.com [204.49.68.221]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA25897 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 08:03:38 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8B75.6F5E0B40@x2p45.gnt.com>; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 08:03:35 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8B75.6F5E0B40@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1587 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Aliens, Why don't we see them? Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 07:37:54 -0500 Timothy, >Isn't there a lot of controversy about this reasoning? The fallacy of Zeno's Paradox is that space is not infinite which he assumed it was. When I applied reasoning similar to his I made no such assumption or I would have concluded that "our sky WOULD BE COMPLETELY FULL OF VISIBLE TRACES AT EVERY SINGLE MOMENT" >Ah, human values cannot be ascribed to aliens, but their (technical) >development can be assumed to be similar? Please explain this apparent >discrepancy. Easy enough. One assumes that physical laws are immutable, that they are the same throughout our universe (there has recently been some reason to doubt this). Therefore, whether or not another species follows our exact course of technical progress doesn't matter. In general they MUST discover basically the same things, perhaps sooner than we did, or later, or in a different order, but the same physical concepts. Social science on the other hand is not so cut and dried. You do not expect a group of whales to behave with human values do you? Or better yet, how about a bunch of lizards? And we are only talking about terrestrial species so far. If anything, the gap will widen for non- terrestrial species. Of course this whole argument is based on logic and everyone knows that logic is just a way of going wrong with confidence :-) Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "I share no man's opinions; I have my own." Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, 1862 From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 09:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["136" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "10:25:56" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "5" "Re: starship-design: Superluminal velocity of quasars" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA00392 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 09:26:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA00323 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 09:26:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa4dsp5.gpt.infi.net (pa4dsp5.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.101]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA02844 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 12:26:12 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C27823.7EF3@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 135 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Superluminal velocity of quasars Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 10:25:56 -0700 According to that article, quasars are hot stars within our galaxy. How does a single star produce that much energy?? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 20:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["11245" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "20:23:35" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "269" "starship-design: FW: SSRT: Funding for new SSTO X-vehicle missing (fwd)" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA04573 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:26:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA04560 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:26:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p9.gnt.com [204.49.68.214]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA01640 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 22:26:31 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8BED.F1CBB320@x2p45.gnt.com>; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 22:26:13 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8BED.F1CBB320@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 11244 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: FW: SSRT: Funding for new SSTO X-vehicle missing (fwd) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:23:35 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: Chris W. Johnson [SMTP:chrisj@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 1997 4:11 PM To: Single Stage Rocket Technology News Subject: SSRT: Funding for new SSTO X-vehicle missing (fwd) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 12:30:44 -0700 (MST) From: Donald Doughty To: delta-clipper@world.std.com Subject: ALERT: Help Needed to correct Congressional Mistake! (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: delta-clipper-approval@world.std.com Reply-To: delta-clipper@world.std.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 08:32:06 -0400 (EDT) From: ProSpace97@aol.com Subject: ALERT: Help Needed to correct Congressional Mistake! ****************************************************** * ProSpace Legislative ACTION Alert * * Alert No. 97-9, 7/7/97 * ****************************************************** * Flawed NASA Spending Bill to be Marked up Tuesday * * "Citizen Action Needed to Correct Mistakes" * ****************************************************** * Distribute to ALL Lists -- Post to ALL Sites * ****************************************************** **************************************** * To be ADDED to this List, or * * to be REMOVED from this List * * send a request to SpFrontier@aol.com * **************************************** ************************************************ * TABLE OF CONTENTS * * * * A) House HUD/VA Appropriations Subcommittee * * makes big policy mistakes. * * * * B) Actions Needed: * * -> Call Your Member of Congress (Monday) * * -> Call/Fax Member(s) of Appropriations * * Committee * * * ************************************************ * World Wide Web: www.prospace.org * ************************************************ ******************************************* A) House HUD/VA Subcommittee makes Mistakes ******************************************* Late last month, in very quiet action, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies marked up its spending bill and sent it to the full Appropriations Committee for consideration on Tuesday. The House VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee has taken several controversial actions, which in the opinion of ProSpace President Charles Miller "are major space policy blunders." According to Miller, "Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R, CA) totally disregarded the policy guidance of the full Science Committee in at least 2 areas. First, Science Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner has held several hearings about, and is in the news every other week expressing his concerns about the Russian's ability to keep their commitments to this country. He has personally gone over to Russia to make his views perfectly clear. Yet, HUD/VA has decided to REWARD Russia's failure with a $100 Million pay-off. Second, the Commercial Space Authorization Act of 1998 and 1999 (H.R. 1275), which was approved by the full House, specifically authorized at least $300 Million in FY 1998 funding for a new SSTO RLV X-vehicle. This was clearly established as the top priority for new spending -- yet the HUD/VA Subcommittee gave it nothing. Miller continued, "This HUD/VA bill contains zero vision for America's future. It is driven by bureaucratic inertia, and serves only bureaucracy. A Democratic President promised an end to the "Era of Big Government but at least one Republican leader in Congress seems to like the status quo. Miller concluded, "Just a few months ago, we briefed 220 Members of Congress on a'Citizens Space Agenda.' 98% of the Members of Congress were extremely interested in what we had to say, but clearly at least one important Member did not listen to anything we said." "I am disappointed, but the American people are not going away. We are going to "open the space frontier for ALL Americans. The future -- the life we will live in the 21st Century -- is at stake right now. The American public's voice will be heard." *************************************** B) CALL TO ACTION -- Call Congress Now! *************************************** The full Appropriations Committee is meeting on Tuesday to review the HUD/VA bill. We need Americans to call as many Members of the Committee as possible on Monday (and ask your friends to call too!) **** What to Do **** 1) Call or FAX one (or more) Members from the list below of Members on the Appropriations Committee. Look first for a Member of Congress from your home state. There are Members from 32 states on the Committee, so you have a good chance. The Members are sorted by State. If you send a Fax, keep it short and to the point. You want them to read it immediately. 2) Politely ask for the Staffer responsible for Appropriations. (If you get their voice-mail, good. Leave a detailed message.) 3) POLITELY deliver the following message: * You feel that the NASA portion of the HUD/VA bill rewards bureaucracy and big government instead of funding the space priorities of the American people. * "The most important new spending priority for space is "Future-X! This program could help open the space frontier for millions of Americans, and save billions of dollars for the American taxpayer." * "Future-X" was authorized for over $300 Million in FY 1998 within H.R. 1275, the Civilian Space Authorization Act of 1998 and 1999, but HUD/VA bill contains no funding for it." * "Please add $300 Million for "Future-X" during the markup on Tuesday." * Keep it short and thank them for their time. 4) Call your own Member of Congress: a) Call your own Member. (Call 202-224-3121 to get phone number from the Congressional Operator) b) Identify yourself as a constituent, and ask for the staffer responsible for space. (If you get their voice-mail, leave a detailed message.) c) Be ready to give your home address to identify yourself as a constituent. d) Explain the situation (above) to the space staffer. e) Politely tell the staffer that you would like your Congressional Representative to support a "Citizens Space Agenda." Specifically ask for a call Rep. Bob Livingston (R, LA) or Rep. David Obey (D, WI) -- the Chairman and Senior Minority Member of the Appropriations Committee, to request an increase of $300 Million for "Future-X." e) Unless the staffer has questions, thank the staffer for his or her time, and sign off. Contact Information for the House Appropriations Committee Appropriations, Chairman PHONE FAX Livingston, Robert (R, LA) 202-225-3015 202-225-0739 Appropriations, Ranking Minority Member) Obey, David (D, WI) 202-225-3365 202-225-0561 Aderholt, Robert (R, AL) 202-225-4876 202-225-5587 Callahan, Sonny (R, AL) 202-225-4931 202-225-0562 Dickey, Jay (R, AR) 202-225-3772 202-225-8646 Kolbe, James T. (R, AZ) 202-225-2542 202-225-0378 Pastor, Ed (D, AZ) 202-225-4065 202-225-1655 Lewis, Jerry (R, CA) 202-225-5861 202-225-6498 Torres, Esteban (D, CA) 202-225-5256 202-225-9711 Pelosi, Nancy (D, CA) 202-225-4965 202-225-8259 Fazio, Vic (D, CA) 202-225-5716 202-225-0354 Dixon, Julian C. (D, CA) 202-225-7084 202-225-4091 Packard, Ronald (R, CA) 202-225-3906 202-225-0134 Randy Cunningham (R, CA) 202-225-5452 202-225-2558 David E. Skaggs (D, CO) 202-225-2161 202-225-9127 DeLauro, Rosa (D, CT) 202-225-3661 202-225-4890 Miller, Dan (R, FL) 202-225-5015 202-226-0828 Young, C. W. Bill (R, FL) 202-225-5961 202-225-9764 Meek, Carrie P. (D, FL) 202-225-4506 202-226-0777 Kingston, Jack (R, GA) 202-225-5831 202-226-2269 Latham, Tom (R, IA) 202-225-5476 202-225-3301 Yates, Sidney R. (D, IL) 202-225-2111 202-225-3493 Porter, John E. (R, IL) 202-225-4835 202-225-0157 Visclosky, Peter J. (D, IN) 202-225-2461 202-225-2493 Tiahrt, Todd (R, KS) 202-225-6216 202-225-3489 Rogers, Harold (R, KY) 202-225-4601 202-225-0940 Northup, Anne (R, KY) 202-225-5401 202-225-5776 Olver, John (D, MA) 202-225-5335 202-225-1224 Hoyer, Steny H. (D, MD) 202-225-4131 202-225-4300 Knollenberg, Joe (R, MI) 202-225-5802 202-226-2356 Sabo, Martin Olav (D, MN) 202-225-4755 202-225-4886 Wicker, Roger (R, MS) 202-225-4306 202-225-4328 Parker, Mike (R, MS) 202-225-5865 202-225-5886 Taylor, Charles Hart (R, NC) 202-225-6401 202-251-0794 Hefner, Bill (D, NC) 202-225-3715 202-225-4036 Price, David (D, NC) 202-225-4511 202-225-2237 Frelinghuysen, Rodney (R, NJ) 202-225-5034 202-225-0658 Skeen, Joseph (R, NM) 202-225-2365 202-225-9599 Lowey, Nita M. (D, NY) 202-225-6506 202-225-0546 Forbes, Michael (R, NY) 202-225-3826 202-225-0776 Walsh, James T. (R, NY) 202-225-3701 202-225-4042 Serrano, Jose (D, NY) 202-225-4361 202-225-6001 Stokes, Louis (D, OH) 202-225-7032 202-225-1339 Kaptur, Marcy (D, OH) 202-225-4146 202-225-7711 Regula, Ralph (R, OH) 202-225-3876 202-225-3059 Hobson, David L. (R, OH) 202-225-4324 202-225-1984 Istook, Ernest Jim (R, OK) 202-225-2132 202-226-1463 Murtha, John P. (D, PA) 202-225-2065 202-225-5709 McDade, Joseph M. (R, PA) 202-225-3731 202-225-9594 Foglietta, Thomas M. (D, PA) 202-225-4731 202-225-0088 Wamp, Zach (R, TN) 202-225-3271 202-225-3494 Bonilla, Henry (R, TX) 202-225-4511 202-225-2237 DeLay, Thomas (R, TX) 202-225-5951 202-225-5241 Edwards, Chet (D TX) 202-225-6105 202-225-0350 Wolf, Frank R. (R, VA) 202-225-5136 202-225-0437 Moran, James P (D VA) 202-225-0017 202-225-0017 Nethercutt, George (R, WA) 202-225-2006 202-225-7181 Dicks, Norman D. (D, WA) 202-225-5916 202-226-1176 Neumann, Mark (R, WI) 202-225-3031 202-225-3393 Mollohan, Alan B. (D, WV) 202-225-4172 202-225-7564 Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryan *********************************** "Opening the Space Frontier for ALL People, and as soon as possible" E-mail: ProSpace97@aol.com Web: www.prospace.org *********************************** From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 20:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["10086" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "20:24:03" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "213" "starship-design: FW: SSRT: Space Access action alert 7/4/97 (fwd)" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA04677 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:27:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA04652 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:27:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p9.gnt.com [204.49.68.214]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA01666 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 22:26:55 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8BEE.00BA06C0@x2p45.gnt.com>; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 22:26:39 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8BEE.00BA06C0@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 10085 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: FW: SSRT: Space Access action alert 7/4/97 (fwd) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:24:03 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: Chris W. Johnson [SMTP:chrisj@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 1997 4:06 PM To: Single Stage Rocket Technology News Subject: SSRT: Space Access action alert 7/4/97 (fwd) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 12:30:00 -0700 (MST) From: Donald Doughty To: delta-clipper@world.std.com Subject: Space Access political action alert 7/4/97 (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: delta-clipper-approval@world.std.com Reply-To: delta-clipper@world.std.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 12:50:05 -0400 (EDT) >From: hvanderbilt@BIX.com >To: hvanderbilt@BIX.com >Subject: Space Access political action alert 7/4/97 Space Access Society Political Action Alert 7/4/97 We have multiple critical funding events taking place as soon as Congress is back in session post-holiday, this coming Tuesday July 8th. - The full House Appropriations Committee is marking up the HUD/VA/Independent Agencies (NASA) appropriation bill. We'd like to see $300 million added for "Future X", matching the House NASA Authorization funding, albeit with slightly different emphasis than the House Auth's one-project-wins-all wording. "Future X" is more a range of projects. - Both the House and Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittees mark up their bills. We'd like to see $75 million for DOD spaceplane technology work added in both markups. - The Senate Defense Authorization goes to the floor for debate and amendment by the full Senate. We'd like to see the $10 million authorized for military spaceplane work increased to $75 million, to get this work off to a fast start. News Summary The X-33 emergency "tiger team" program review's results are coming out. In short, NASA and Lockheed-Martin have finally admitted X-33 has serious problems, and are moving to fix them. 5,000 lbs of weight reductions that don't reduce program scope have been identified, aerodynamic problems continue to be worked, widely scattered project management is being concentrated at Skunk Works in Palmdale, and there are strong indications that Lockheed-Martin is prepared to eat the expected cost overruns. We're cautiously optimistic that something useful might fly after all, and that NASA RLV is (expensively) learning what not to do with future space X-vehicles. The House DOD Authorization committee markup added $16.2 million for preliminary "spaceplane" tech work, while the Senate added $10 million. It's a good start - our thanks to everyone who helped bring it about. Space Frontier Foundation is running a NASA sponsored "Cheap Access" symposium at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill (400 New Jersey Ave NW in Washington DC, $79/night summer rate available) Monday July 21st and Tuesday July 22nd. Admission is free, NASA's paying the expenses. This looks like being heavily weighted towards major aerospace and DC insiders; cheap access activists who can attend will leaven the mix. We'll be on a Tuesday afternoon panel. Info and online registration at http://www.space-frontier.org/CATS. And it's Space Access Society's fifth anniversary; we were founded on July 4th 1992. We've made considerable progress since then - less than we'd hoped but more than we'd feared. Here's hoping that five years from now we'll be flying rockets, not arguing about them! Alert Details This alert is for everybody - if you don't have a Representative on the House Appropriations Committee or a Represenatative or Senator on the House or Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittees, you do have two Senators who could if they wish intervene in the Senate Defense Authorization floor action. It may be a long shot, but if you don't ask, they definitely won't help. Yours might just be the one message that by luck and persuasiveness convinces one Senator to take action. Call or fax - time is too short for paper mail, unless you pay for overnight delivery Monday. If you call, ask to speak to the LA (legislative assistant) for NASA or for DOD R&D, as appropriate. Chances are you'll get their voicemail. Voicemail or in person, identify yourself as a constituent (Hi, I'm Joe Smith from Sheboygan), make your pitch briefly (ask them to support $XXm funding for YY), give them a one-sentence reason why you think its important, thank them for their time, and ring off. Unless you get them live and they have questions; in that case do your best to answer them. If you fax, keep it short, one page max, and state your main point at the start, then briefly give supporting points. And either way, be polite - one bad impression could waste a lot of good impressions. House Appropriations Committee (call or fax and ask support for $300m NASA "future X" funding in the NASA Appropriations markup) (* means defense subcommittee, also call or fax and ask support for $75m DOD spaceplane technology funding in USAF PE 63401F in the Defense Appropriations markup.) (Appropriations Chair) voice fax *Livingston, Robert (R-01 LA) 1-202-225-3015 1-202-225-0739 (Appropriations Ranking Minority Member) *Obey, David R. (D-07) 1-202-225-3365 1-202-225-0561 (NatSec Subcommittee Chair) *Young, C. W. Bill (R-10 FL) 1-202-225-5961 1-202-225-9764 (NatSecSubcommittee RMM) *Murtha, John P. (D-12 PA) 1-202-225-2065 1-202-225-5709 Robert Aderholt (R AL) Callahan, Sonny (R-01 AL) 1-202-225-4931 1-202-225-0562 Dickey, Jay (R-04 AR) 1-202-225-3772 1-202-225-8646 Kolbe, James T. (R-05 AZ) 1-202-225-2542 1-202-225-0378 Ed Pastor (D AZ) *Lewis, Jerry (R-40 CA) 1-202-225-5861 1-202-225-6498 Torres, Esteban E. (D-34 CA) 1-202-225-5256 1-202-225-9711 Pelosi, Nancy (D-08 CA) 1-202-225-4965 1-202-225-8259 Fazio, Vic (D-03 CA) 1-202-225-5716 1-202-225-0354 *Dixon, Julian C. (D-32 CA) 1-202-225-7084 1-202-225-4091 Packard, Ronald (R-48 CA) 1-202-225-3906 1-202-225-0134 *Randy Cunningham (R CA) Skaggs, David E. (D-02 CO) 1-202-225-2161 1-202-225-9127 Rosa DeLaura (D CT) Miller, Dan (R-13 FL) 1-202-225-5015 1-202-226-0828 Carrie P Meek (D FL) Kingston, Jack (R-01 GA) 1-202-225-5831 1-202-226-2269 Tom Latham (R IA) Yates, Sidney R. (D-09 IL) 1-202-225-2111 1-202-225-3493 Porter, John E. (R-10 IL) 1-202-225-4835 1-202-225-0157 *Visclosky, Peter J. (D-01 IN) 1-202-225-2461 1-202-225-2493 Todd Tiahrt (R KS) Rogers, Harold (R-05 KY) 1-202-225-4601 1-202-225-0940 Anne Northup (R KY) John W Olver (D MA) Hoyer, Steny H. (D-05 MD) 1-202-225-4131 1-202-225-4300 Knollenberg, Joe (R-11 MI) 1-202-225-5802 1-202-226-2356 *Sabo, Martin Olav (D-05 MN) 1-202-225-4755 1-202-225-4886 Wicker, Roger (R-01 MS) 1-202-225-4306 1-202-225-4328 Mike Parker (R MS) Taylor, Charles Hart (R-11 NC) 1-202-225-6401 1-202-251-0794 *Hefner, Bill (D-08 NC) 1-202-225-3715 1-202-225-4036 David E Price (D NC) Frelinghuysen, Rodney (R-11 NJ) 1-202-225-5034 1-202-225-0658 *Skeen, Joseph (R-02 NM) 1-202-225-2365 1-202-225-9599 Lowey, Nita M. (D-18 NY) 1-202-225-6506 1-202-225-0546 Forbes, Michael (R-01 NY) 1-202-225-3826 1-202-225-0776 Walsh, James T. (R-25 NY) 1-202-225-3701 1-202-225-4042 Jose Serrano (D NY) Kaptur, Marcy (D-09 OH) 1-202-225-4146 1-202-225-7711 Stokes, Louis (D-11 OH) 1-202-225-7032 1-202-225-1339 Regula, Ralph (R-16 OH) 1-202-225-3876 1-202-225-3059 *Hobson, David L. (R-07 OH) 1-202-225-4324 1-202-225-1984 *Istook, Ernest Jim (R-05 OK) 1-202-225-2132 1-202-226-1463 *McDade, Joseph M. (R-10 PA) 1-202-225-3731 1-202-225-9594 Foglietta, Thomas M. (D-01 PA) 1-202-225-4731 1-202-225-0088 Zach Wamp (R TN) *Bonilla, Henry (R-23 TX) 1-202-225-4511 1-202-225-2237 DeLay, Thomas (R-22 TX) 1-202-225-5951 1-202-225-5241 Chet Edwards (D TX) Wolf, Frank R. (R-10 VA) 1-202-225-5136 1-202-225-0437 James P Moran (D VA) *Nethercutt, George (R-05 WA) 1-202-225-2006 1-202-225-7181 *Dicks, Norman D. (D-06 WA) 1-202-225-5916 1-202-226-1176 Neumann, Mark (R-01 WI) 1-202-225-3031 1-202-225-3393 Mollohan, Alan B. (D-01 WV) 1-202-225-4172 1-202-225-7564 Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee (ask for $75m DOD spaceplane funding in USAF PE 63401F in the Defense Appropriations markup.) voice fax Sen. Stevens, Ted (R AK) 1-202-224-3004 1-202-224-1044 (chair, SAC NatSec Sub) Sen. Inouye, Daniel (D HI) 1-202-224-3934 1-202-224-6747 (Ranking Minority Member, SAC NatSec Sub) Sen. Cochran, Thad (R MS) 1-202-224-5054 1-202-224-3576 Sen. Domenici, Pete V. (R NM) 1-202-224-6621 1-202-224-7371 Sen. McConnell, Mitch (R KY) 1-202-224-2541 1-202-224-2499 Sen. Specter, Arlen (R PA) 1-202-224-4254 1-202-224-1893 Sen. Bond, Christopher (R MO) 1-202-224-5721 1-202-224-8149 Sen. Shelby, Richard C. (R AL) 1-202-224-5744 1-202-224-3416 Sen. Hollings, Ernest (D SC) 1-202-224-6121 1-202-224-4293 Sen. Byrd, Robert (D WV) 1-202-224-3954 1-202-224-4025 Sen. Leahy, Patrick (D VT) 1-202-224-4242 1-202-224-3595 Sen. Harkin, Thomas (D IA) 1-202-224-3254 1-202-224-7431 Sen. Lautenberg, Frank (D NJ) 1-202-224-4744 1-202-224-9707 Sen. Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R TX) Sen. Gregg, Judd (R NH) Sen. Bumpers, Dale (D AR) Sen. Dorgan, Byron (D ND) Full Senate (look up your Senators in the phonebook, in the Federal government section of the "blue pages". Call the local number and ask for the DC office number.) Ask for support for $75m in DOD spaceplane technology work in USAF PE 63401F in the Defense Authorization bill. *end* From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 20:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["77" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "21:40:14" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "4" "starship-design: Hello?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA07869 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:40:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA07858 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:40:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pa4dsp5.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-91.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.91]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA04695 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:40:12 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C3162D.3BCA@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 76 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Hello? Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 21:40:14 -0700 No responses to my messages. I'm still a member, right? Kyle R. Mcallister From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 23:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3754" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "23:16:56" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "76" "starship-design: Raise the limit? " "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id XAA12393 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:16:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id XAA12376 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:16:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts7-line2.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.49]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA27176; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:15:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id XAA04397; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:16:56 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707090616.XAA04397@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33C19E6F.E17@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33C19E6F.E17@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 3753 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Raise the limit? Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:16:56 -0700 kyle writes: > I was wondering about FTL travel, and ask myself "why do we really need > it?" To get somewhere fast. Why not abandon FTL until physics gets that > far and simply travel without traversing the space between two points? > You could theoretically travel from any point to any point without > having to exceed the speed of light, AND taking a very short travel time > in earth's reference point. The problem with this is that so far the only known way to curve space is to concentrate mass. Furthermore, curving space doesn't easily allow for the sort of curvature > One other possibility: the speed of light can be raised, so why bother > with FTL? Just boost the speed of light to say, 150,000,000,000 m/sec? > One question: how much energy is needed? In the case of the Casimir effect, the speed of light is increased in a region between two charged plates. Even if you could get rid of the plates, the problem with this is either making the region large enough to allow travel over a great distance, or getting the region itself to travel faster than c. >From my study of the physics involved, my suspicion is that any FTL technique will probably take much more energy than relativistic travel. I think that if FTL is ever developed it will probably only be used for the most critical applications, because it will be so much more expensive. > One last thing: relativity does NOT (for me) explain superluminal > velocity of quasars. I know the velocity trick, but isn't that > contradiction with the Lorentz transformation addition of velocity? > Maybe they just didn't want to get into something real hard to explain. > Or maybe I misunderstood. Let's consider a simplified version of this phenomenon. Using a powerful telescope, you observe a craft depart from a distant planet headed toward you for another planet a light-year closer to you. Using measurements of doppler-shifted light from the craft, you can tell that it's moving at 0.8 c. Continuing to observe the craft, you see that it reaches its destination after only 0.25 years of observation. So it moved one light-year in 0.25 years, meaning it traveled at 4 c, right? Well, not really. This doesn't even really require relativity to resolve, because it's really just an effect of the finite speed of light. When you observe the craft departing the planet and (in a negligible time, for our purposes) accelerating to 0.8 c, the ship itself is lagging not too far behind the light that it emitted on departure. When it reaches its destination planet a light-year closer to you, it's traveled 1 light-year in 1.25 years (1 / 0.8) of your time; in that time the light it emitted on departure has travelled 1.25 light years, so those approaching photons are only 0.25 light-years ahead of the photons it emitted on reaching its destination, and you see those photons arrive only 0.25 years apart. For something headed directly toward you, the apparent velocity you see is v / (1 - v). For any v > 0.5 c, this produces an apparent velocity of approach greater than c, and as the object approaches the speed of light, the apparent velocity of approach goes to infinity, as the object lags less and less behind the light that you're using to perceive it. Note that the apparent superluminal motion happens only when the object approaches you; the converse result is that an object moving away appears to recede at no more than 1/2 c even when its velocity is close to -1 c. Exercises 3-15 and 3-16 (pp. 89-92) in _Spacetime Physics_ go into more detail on this phenomenon. Exercise 3-16 specifically covers the analysis of a "superluminal" jet from a quasar and the more general case of objects approaching at an angle rather than straight-on. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 8 23:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1240" "Tue" "8" "July" "1997" "23:59:33" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "24" "starship-design: Raise the limit? " "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id XAA19308 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:59:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id XAA19298 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:59:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts10-line10.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.108]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA00886 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:58:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id XAA04524; Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:59:33 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707090659.XAA04524@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707090616.XAA04397@tzadkiel.efn.org> References: <33C19E6F.E17@sunherald.infi.net> <199707090616.XAA04397@tzadkiel.efn.org> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1239 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Raise the limit? Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:59:33 -0700 Steve VanDevender writes: > kyle writes: > > I was wondering about FTL travel, and ask myself "why do we really need > > it?" To get somewhere fast. Why not abandon FTL until physics gets that > > far and simply travel without traversing the space between two points? > > You could theoretically travel from any point to any point without > > having to exceed the speed of light, AND taking a very short travel time > > in earth's reference point. > > The problem with this is that so far the only known way to curve space > is to concentrate mass. Furthermore, curving space doesn't easily allow > for the sort of curvature Bleah. I meant to finish that paragraph, really :-) Furthermore, curving space doesn't easily allow for travel that looks subluminal in one direction but superluminal in others. Speculative "space warps" like Tipler's infinite rotating cylinder or Kerr-Newman black holes aren't easy to construct -- the Tipler cylinder would collapse axially, and you can't spin a black hole up to the point of being able to access the singularity without being trapped in the black hole. And either method, again, uses tremendous amounts of energy that could be used to fuel many relativistic starships. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 06:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1690" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "15:15:17" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "43" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA23963 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 06:17:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA23951 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 06:17:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-004.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlwdF-000GbEC; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:18:09 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1689 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them? Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 15:15:17 +0100 Lee, >>Isn't there a lot of controversy about this reasoning? > >The fallacy of Zeno's Paradox is that space is not infinite which he >assumed it was. When I applied reasoning similar to his I made no >such assumption or I would have concluded that "our sky WOULD BE >COMPLETELY FULL OF VISIBLE TRACES AT EVERY SINGLE MOMENT" Sorry, I'm a bit confused by the grammar. Are you or are you not concluding that the sky should be full of visible traces at every single moments? >Social science on the other hand is not so cut and dried. You do not >expect a group of whales to behave with human values do you? Or better >yet, how about a bunch of lizards? And we are only talking about >terrestrial species so far. If anything, the gap will widen for non- >terrestrial species. Social science is for the biggest part based on survival, which is rather straightforward. - If a species doesn't work together, they are not likely to be able to develop anything complex. - Thus an important need to get a technical civilization is to cooperate in some way. - Once having a technical civilization, you have two options when finding a similar advanced species: Kill or be friends. - Killing will risk all you care for. (And you do care, since you are a cooperative species.) So you will only kill if you have nothing to loose. - Thus the only option left is to be friends. >Of course this whole argument is based on logic and everyone knows >that logic is just a way of going wrong with confidence :-) Yes, the sentence right above, proofs what it says :p If you find errors in my logic, I'd like to hear about it, so that I will be enabled to increase confidence. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 06:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["914" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "15:15:15" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "24" "starship-design: Re: Superluminal velocity of quasars" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA24049 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 06:18:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA24028 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 06:18:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-004.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlwdD-000Gb7C; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:18:07 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 913 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Superluminal velocity of quasars Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 15:15:15 +0100 Kyle, >According to that article, quasars are hot stars within our galaxy. How >does a single star produce that much energy?? >From what I understand from: http://www.achilles.net/~jtalbot/V1979/index.html (This is the first link of the page I reffered to last time) The stars don't produce that much energy. Because of the abnormal redshift, astronomers used to believe that it was far outside our galaxy. So since it was as bright as normal stars and so far away it should be very energetic. But since a few decades astronomers find more and more evidence that the redshift seen from Quasars is not related to their distance from Earth. Therefore their power output has to be much lower to give the same brightness. The final question may be what causes this abnormal redshift. I haven't been able yet to figure out what the experts believe but think that it has to do with natural laser action. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 07:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1345" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "16:09:09" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "34" "starship-design: Quasar spectra" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA02630 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 07:11:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA02618 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 07:11:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-004.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wlxTO-000GXqC; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 16:12:02 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1344 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Quasar spectra Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 16:09:09 +0100 Kyle, It seems I found what I was looking for. The abnormal redshifts are not really there according to http://www.achilles.net/~jtalbot/V1979/redshift.html If I understand correctly, the way in which redshifts are measured depends on the intensities of different spectral lines. So as long as you know what the intensities should be, you can determine the redshift. But QSO's cause unexpected relative intensities and therefore disturb the expected pattern (that is, if you don't look well enough, you will be fooled) One might expect that figuring out the redshift from spectral data is not that difficult, after all, just apply the frequency shift formula and see if the adjusted spectra match known emission frequencies. This indeed would be the case, if the quality of the spectra was very good. But in reality the spectra are poor (much overlapping peaks, etc), and a bit of educated (=knowing the physics behind the peaks) guesswork is involved. As long as things are normal the guesses will usually be right, but if unexpected things (=increased spectrum lines by natural laser action) happen in the spectra then mistakes will be made. Timothy For the curvefitting the PLS (partial least squares) model is used. Check out http://www.galactic.com/galactic/Science/pls.htm to figure out what it is and what assumptions are made. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 07:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3532" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "09:11:22" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "76" "RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA08797 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 07:46:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA08775 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 07:46:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p1.gnt.com [204.49.68.206]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA26809 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:46:08 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8C4C.E9D53B00@x2p45.gnt.com>; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:46:02 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8C4C.E9D53B00@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3531 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them? Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:11:22 -0500 Timothy, Prepare for a dose of confidence... :-) >>The fallacy of Zeno's Paradox is that space is not infinite which he >>assumed it was. When I applied reasoning similar to his I made no >>such assumption or I would have concluded that "our sky WOULD BE >>COMPLETELY FULL OF VISIBLE TRACES AT EVERY SINGLE MOMENT" >Sorry, I'm a bit confused by the grammar. Are you or are you not concluding >that the sky should be full of visible traces at every single moments? Zeno's Paradox dealt with why the sky was dark at night. His reasoning (logic) was simply that there were an infinite number of stars so there should be an infinite amount of starlight falling upon the Earth all the time, even at night, therefore it would never get dark, but since it was obviously not light at night there was a paradox. Of course the error in his reasoning was two-fold. First of all, there aren't an infinite number of stars; and second, the concept of infinities were not yet properly understood. I paraphrased this (from memory) heavily, so please excuse any errors or omissions. The point I was making is that even though there aren't an infinite number of stars (and therefore a finite number of possible civilizations) the number is still large enough that assuming ANY figure for a percent of stars with star-faring civilizations, there would still be so many that we would HAVE to see some evidence somewhere. Yet we don't. I'm not concluding there is a paradox here :-), just that something is wrong with our fundamental assumptions about the frequency of life on other worlds. In any event I find it difficult to accept that we are alone, but observational evidence would seem to indicate that this is the case. >>Social science on the other hand is not so cut and dried. You do not >>expect a group of whales to behave with human values do you? Or better >>yet, how about a bunch of lizards? And we are only talking about >>terrestrial species so far. If anything, the gap will widen for non- >>terrestrial species. >Social science is for the biggest part based on survival, which is rather >straightforward. >- If a species doesn't work together, they are not likely to be able to > develop anything complex. >- Thus an important need to get a technical civilization is to cooperate > in some way. >- Once having a technical civilization, you have two options when finding > a similar advanced species: Kill or be friends. >- Killing will risk all you care for. (And you do care, since you are a > cooperative species.) > So you will only kill if you have nothing to loose. >- Thus the only option left is to be friends. Well that certainly sounds logical but your fundamental assertion is not valid, therefore the remaining arguments, however good, are also suspect. You cannot base an analysis of anything (much less social dynamics) on a single sample. Which effectively speaking is what Earth's entire ecosystem is - a single sample. As for the remainder of the arguments, they don't even hold for humans (just ask any student of international politics). I hope this has increased your level of confidence. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Long experience has taught me not to believe in the limitations indicated by purely theoretical considerations. These - as we well know - are based on insufficient knowledge of all the relevant factors." Guglielmo Marconi From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 08:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["970" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "09:04:22" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "24" "Re: starship-design: Re: Superluminal velocity of quasars" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA14147 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:04:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA14123 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:04:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-95.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-95.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.95]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA02801; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 11:04:36 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C3B685.2318@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 969 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: Timothy van der Linden CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Superluminal velocity of quasars Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 09:04:22 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > Kyle, > > >From what I understand from: > http://www.achilles.net/~jtalbot/V1979/index.html > (This is the first link of the page I reffered to last time) > > The stars don't produce that much energy. Because of the abnormal redshift, > astronomers used to believe that it was far outside our galaxy. So since it > was as bright as normal stars and so far away it should be very energetic. > > But since a few decades astronomers find more and more evidence that the > redshift seen from Quasars is not related to their distance from Earth. > Therefore their power output has to be much lower to give the same brightness. > > The final question may be what causes this abnormal redshift. I haven't been > able yet to figure out what the experts believe but think that it has to do > with natural laser action. > That would certainly answer many questions about quasars (if true). Good article. Thank you for telling me about it. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 08:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2642" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "09:12:11" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "58" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA16073 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:12:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA16044 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:12:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-95.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-95.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.95]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA02221; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 11:12:31 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C3B85B.7A56@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BC8C4C.E9D53B00@x2p45.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2641 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: "L. Parker" CC: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them? Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 09:12:11 -0700 L. Parker wrote: > > The point I was making is that even though there aren't an infinite > number of stars (and therefore a finite number of possible civilizations) > the number is still large enough that assuming ANY figure for a percent > of stars with star-faring civilizations, there would still be so many > that we would HAVE to see some evidence somewhere. Yet we don't. Maybe we HAVE seen evidence...ever heard of "Fast Walker"? If not, I'll explain it. > I'm not > concluding there is a paradox here :-), just that something is wrong > with our fundamental assumptions about the frequency of life on other > worlds. In any event I find it difficult to accept that we are alone, > but observational evidence would seem to indicate that this is the case. > > >>Social science on the other hand is not so cut and dried. You do not > >>expect a group of whales to behave with human values do you? Or better > >>yet, how about a bunch of lizards? And we are only talking about > >>terrestrial species so far. If anything, the gap will widen for non- > >>terrestrial species. > > >Social science is for the biggest part based on survival, which is rather > >straightforward. > > >- If a species doesn't work together, they are not likely to be able to > > develop anything complex. > >- Thus an important need to get a technical civilization is to cooperate > > in some way. > >- Once having a technical civilization, you have two options when finding > > a similar advanced species: Kill or be friends. > >- Killing will risk all you care for. (And you do care, since you are a > > cooperative species.) > > So you will only kill if you have nothing to loose. > >- Thus the only option left is to be friends. > > Well that certainly sounds logical but your fundamental assertion is not > valid, therefore the remaining arguments, however good, are also suspect. > You cannot base an analysis of anything (much less social dynamics) on > a single sample. Which effectively speaking is what Earth's entire > ecosystem is - a single sample. > > As for the remainder of the arguments, they don't even hold for humans > (just ask any student of international politics). > > I hope this has increased your level of confidence. > > Lee Parker > > (o o) > ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- > Long experience has taught me not to believe in the limitations indicated by > purely theoretical considerations. These - as we well know - are based on > insufficient knowledge of all the relevant factors." > > Guglielmo Marconi From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 09:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["62" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "11:19:32" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "7" "RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA11603 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:20:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA11585 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:20:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p1.gnt.com [204.49.68.206]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA32016 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 11:20:21 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC8C5A.14AF2860@x2p45.gnt.com>; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 11:20:18 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC8C5A.14AF2860@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 61 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them? Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 11:19:32 -0500 Kyle, No, I have never heard of fast walker... Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 10:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["921" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "11:43:26" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "21" "starship-design: Fast Walker" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA19091 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:47:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA19079 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:47:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-95.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-88.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.88]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA05374; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 13:43:41 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C3DBCD.7C94@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 920 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Fast Walker Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 11:43:26 -0700 Greetings: Fast Walker is the nickname given to an object that was seen by some satelites we put in orbit to detect nuclear detonations. This object is strange in the fact that it approache earth, then veered away, producing enourmous amounts of energy. Here's where it gets weirder: It departed with LESS than escape velocity! Theoretically impossible, unless you have a drive system that produces antigravity! Maybe it was natural, but I seriously doubt it. Maybe I sound like a UFO nut, but I don't believe every story I hear (such as Roswell, where I say "Show me the alien debris", but who knows?) Think about how possible it is that we may have been visited then. Why did they not contact us? Remember the Avatar scenario? We took that into account quite well. Was it artificial? I personally think there's a good chance it was. Kyle Mcallister P.S.: I can give you some webpages about FastWalker if you like. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 12:55 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2618" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "21:52:34" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "53" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA06345 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 12:55:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA06311 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 12:55:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-017.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wm2pg-000JTfC; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 21:55:24 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2617 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, Why don't we see them? Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 21:52:34 +0100 Lee, >Zeno's Paradox dealt with why the sky was dark at night. His reasoning >(logic) was simply that there were an infinite number of stars so there >should be an infinite amount of starlight falling upon the Earth all the >time, even at night, therefore it would never get dark, but since it was >obviously not light at night there was a paradox. Of course the error in >his reasoning was two-fold. First of all, there aren't an infinite >number of stars; and second, the concept of infinities were not yet >properly understood. I paraphrased this (from memory) heavily, so please >excuse any errors or omissions. Even if the universe was infinitely large, then the sky would still not need to be bright everywhere. In math it is perfectly possible to sum an infinite amount of numbers without getting an infinite answer. Indeed Zeno didn't know this. >The point I was making is that even though there aren't an infinite >number of stars (and therefore a finite number of possible civilizations) >the number is still large enough that assuming ANY figure for a percent >of stars with star-faring civilizations, there would still be so many >that we would HAVE to see some evidence somewhere. Yet we don't. I'm not >concluding there is a paradox here :-), just that something is wrong >with our fundamental assumptions about the frequency of life on other >worlds. In any event I find it difficult to accept that we are alone, >but observational evidence would seem to indicate that this is the case. Certainly not any number for a percent of stars with starfaring civilizations would produce a large enough chance to easely see them. I can think of reasonable numbers (with explanation) that decrease the number of detectable space-faring civilizations per galaxy to rather small numbers. >Well that certainly sounds logical but your fundamental assertion is not >valid, therefore the remaining arguments, however good, are also suspect. >You cannot base an analysis of anything (much less social dynamics) on >a single sample. Which effectively speaking is what Earth's entire >ecosystem is - a single sample. This has little to do with biology or single samples. It is just logic. Space technology needs a lot of effort to realize. It has to be a logical fact that no single organism can do that much work. >As for the remainder of the arguments, they don't even hold for humans >(just ask any student of international politics). It would be handy if you told me... Note that we are talking about civilizations that have no need anymore, to kill for resources (land, food, energy). Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 15:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["561" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "16:28:31" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "20" "starship-design: I have many questions..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA25928 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:28:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA25876 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:28:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-95.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.83]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA18045 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 18:28:38 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C41E9E.66B3@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 560 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: I have many questions... Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 16:28:31 -0700 Greetings, I am working on something and wish to get my underlying physics correct (Steve, you taught me to do this) and have some questions I hope some of you can answer: 1: If you were placed at creation beyond lightspeed, could you continue being in an FTL state? 2: If you are beyond lightspeed, can you continue accelerating? 3: Can light be slowed down in a medium to less than 99.99c? 4: If you are beyond lightspeed in a dense medium, what happens? (it has happened) 5: If you are travelling FTL, can you ever slow down below c? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 9 15:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2583" "Wed" "9" "July" "1997" "15:48:18" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "57" "starship-design: I have many questions..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA06610 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:48:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA06571 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:48:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA00761; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:46:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA06679; Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:48:18 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707092248.PAA06679@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33C41E9E.66B3@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33C41E9E.66B3@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2582 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: I have many questions... Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:48:18 -0700 kyle writes: > Greetings, > > I am working on something and wish to get my underlying physics correct > (Steve, you taught me to do this) and have some questions I hope some of > you can answer: > > 1: If you were placed at creation beyond lightspeed, could you continue > being in an FTL state? > > 2: If you are beyond lightspeed, can you continue accelerating? > > 3: Can light be slowed down in a medium to less than 99.99c? > > 4: If you are beyond lightspeed in a dense medium, what happens? (it has > happened) > > 5: If you are travelling FTL, can you ever slow down below c? > > Kyle Mcallister >From what I've read on the topic: If you start out superluminal, you stay superluminal, just as if you start out subluminal, you have to stay subluminal. Analyzed simply by relativistic kinematics, a superluminal particle accelerates by _losing_ energy, and has to be raised to asymptotically infinite energy to slow down to c, the unreachable minimum speed for it. Even in a transparent medium, hotons travel at c between atoms, but the slight delay between their absorption and re-emission by atoms in the material reduces their average speed in the medium. A medium is transparent if it tends not to want to absorb photons of the energies to which it is transparent; those photons are only absorbed briefly but push electrons to unwanted energy levels that cause the photons to quickly get re-emitted with their original energies. Charged particles traveling faster than the average velocity of photons in a medium emit Cerenkov radiation in their interaction with charged particles in the medium. If you've seen photographs of the blue glow in water-cooled nuclear reactors, that glow is Cerenkov radiation from particles traveling faster than the average speed of photons in water. (The sci.physics FAQ explains why the glow is blue.) Presumably superluminal particles would also emit Cerenkov radiation in a vacuum, but since they would lose energy as a result this would make them go faster. Since the universe is not filled with a blue glow from a quantity of near-zero-energy nearly-infinitely-fast tachyons we might conclude that either a) tachyons don't exist or b) there's something wrong with this analysis. The quantum-mechanical treatment of tachyons in the sci.physics FAQ is somewhat more interesting. Either tachyons move faster than light, but can't ever be localized (that is, you can't measure them) or they can be localized but then move slower than light. Either way, their superluminal properties are inaccessible. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 10 18:55 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1175" "Thu" "10" "July" "1997" "21:54:52" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "34" "Re: starship-design: I have many questions..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA16155 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 18:55:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout09.mail.aol.com (emout09.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.24]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id SAA16138 for ; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 18:55:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout09.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id VAA00411; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:54:52 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970710215441_1446654963@emout09.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1174 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: I have many questions... Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:54:52 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/10/97 5:22:27 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >Greetings, > >I am working on something and wish to get my underlying physics correct >(Steve, you taught me to do this) and have some questions I hope some of >you can answer: > >1: If you were placed at creation beyond lightspeed, could you continue >being in an FTL state? > >2: If you are beyond lightspeed, can you continue accelerating? > >3: Can light be slowed down in a medium to less than 99.99c? > >4: If you are beyond lightspeed in a dense medium, what happens? (it has >happened) > >5: If you are travelling FTL, can you ever slow down below c? > >Kyle Mcallister Depends on whos theories you by, or how you got to hyper light. Tacyonic theiry suggests that in tacyon space (for want of a better word) everything is like here, all the normal laws work, but your going hyperlight. You don't notice it because your sublight in that universe, but FTL to us, and we seem FTL to you there. If you decelerate to a stop in that universe (land of imaginary numbers) you would be going infinate relative to us. Accelerate to lightspeed and you'll be at light speed to us also. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 10 19:03 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4015" "Thu" "10" "July" "1997" "22:03:08" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "100" "Re: starship-design: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA18316 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:03:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout02.mail.aol.com (emout02.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.93]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA18306 for ; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:03:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout02.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA06807; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:03:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970710220306_881279481@emout02.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4014 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:03:08 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/8/97 7:32:34 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >>>Why would the aliens not wear special suits that are near 100% bioshields? >> >>If anything leaks out. It sould stand out like a neon sign. (HEY! This >>species of microbe doesn't use our kind of DNA!!) > >If a few bacteria leak out, they may very well be killed before they can >replicate and mutate. >And if indeed aliens are in abundance, they may have infected Earth long ago. >Furthermore, there is speculation that microbes come to Earth by meteorites >and dirty snowballs every day. Why? If they were alien, the local life form would have no adaptations tuned for them. Usually that sort of thing leads to major pagues. As to the microbes from space, thats a very thinly defined theory. Besides it still gets back to no signs of alien organisms alive here now. >>>As many suggest, aliens might cause an unwanted psychological effect >>>(apathy, hysteria) in most cultures. A reasonable alien race would not just >>>make contact without thought. Therefore it is likely that they still hide. >> >>This ones kind of a bogus prejudice on 20th century types part. >> Historiocally human cultures routinely ran into alien non person cultures. >> Ok, most were just the next tribe over. But to them that was as shockingly >>alien as aliens would be to us. The tribes seldom wen't hysterical and >>colapsed at the site. If they were in conflict they fought. If not they >>tried to trade or ignored one another. > >You may have a point about older cultures. But I believe that for many today >the world view would change more than they could cope with. My best guess >is, that old civilisations believed in miracles, so a strange species wasn't >much of a shock. (I believe that several European explorers where seen as gods) >A reason to believe that mentality has changed too is that not so many >centuries ago, the fear for the unknown was really bad (witchhunt). I doubt aliens would change anything for people. Oh it would be an interesting spike in conversation (like the microbes from Mars) but it doesn't change anything fundamental. The bulk of folks expect their is life out their. Haviong it show up would be a shock, but not one that effects anything fundamental to us. Sort of like the moon landings. People thought that would change everything. It changed nearly nothing. >One may wonder why old civilisations never benefited from alien >intervention. Maybe they did, but where not interested in technological >progres. Or maybe they didn't because aliens may have little incentive to >help us out. How could they? They certainly were in no position to buy or use high tech. Certainly no reason to give it to us. >In one of our private discussions you also mentioned apathy as a result of >seeing that others are much more advanced and discovered long ago what you >only held possible in your dreams. > >Also for quite some time, sudden balance shifts in economical and military >power would have been rather critical. >This can't be bogus, otherwise I'd see little reason for certain programs to >be secret (stealth planes). They keep them secret so the other side doesn't have a chance to prepare to defend against them, or copy them. Niether a big concern for aliens. Also abos confrounted with culture vastly beyond theirs don't fold up and die. They just want in! >>Besides. We never worry much about droping in on aborigional cultures. > >The reason for us dropping in on aborigional cultures is usually for >resources. What happened to the aboriginals seemed to be less important with >the result that it disappeared rather fast. > >Aliens are likely to have little interest in resources on Earth, so >contacting us would likely only create problems. > >Tim We destroy or push aside abos for their land, but we drop in as anthropologists. Not to trash them. If Aliens came all this way, we'ld be the major area of interest on this rock. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 10 19:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1522" "Thu" "10" "July" "1997" "22:04:06" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "35" "Re: starship-design: Telescopes the size of worlds?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA18522 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:04:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout11.mail.aol.com (emout11.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.26]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA18510 for ; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:04:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout11.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA24475; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:04:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970710220313_-626011911@emout11.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1521 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Telescopes the size of worlds? Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:04:06 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/8/97 12:06:44 AM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >Wait a minute! We're talking about telescopes the size of planets here. >Where are you gonna get that much money to build these? It WILL be more >expensive than a starship, because of the immense size, stabilization >systems, power systems, etc. This may not seem like a problem, but then >you have repairs when a cloud of debris comes careening through the >thing, which pretty much makes useless that telescope. > >Another problem: these things will get so big, they'll warp under their >own weight. If anything hits this thing, it will become destabilized, >and when you try to thrust it back to stability the thing will probably >buckle from stress. If you really want to build these (I don't recommend >it), at least build them in an array, with many smaller scopes. > >These ideas are great to wonder about, but are impractical: for the same >price you can go there. Why then do you spend $100B+ on limited scanning >scopes, when you can go? I ask you: how do you get an electron >micrograph of bacteria with a telescope? theoretically you could, but it >would be so massive... > >And you say my ideas are far-out?? Maybe my ideas defy current >understanding, but they are practical. > >Kyle Mcallister Its not going to be a solid scope! Its just a lose formation of 1-2 meter telescopes and a big computer to integrate the image data into a virtual scope. On the sheilf technology. But never used on this scale before. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 10 19:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["812" "Thu" "10" "July" "1997" "22:06:56" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA18926 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:07:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA18917 for ; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:07:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA21733; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:06:56 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970710220309_390049994@emout07.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 811 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:06:56 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/7/97 11:23:40 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >I have been thinking about this telescope idea, apertures and resolving >power. The recent launch of HALCA in February made me wonder. HALCA works >in concert with ground-based telescopes, allowing astronomers to simulate >a dish with a diameter as large as 28,000 kilometers and a resolving >power-the ability to detect fine details-more than 100 times higher than >that of the Hubble Space Telescope. Of course it is limited by the radius >of its orbit plus or minus one earth diameter. > >So the question is: what exactly is the distance between the leading >LaGrange point and the trailing LaGrange point? It would be awfully >convenient if it was 300,000 km.... > >Lee Parker Closer to 500,000 km I think. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 10 19:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["812" "Thu" "10" "July" "1997" "22:08:06" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA19101 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:08:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout28.mail.aol.com (emout28.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.133]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA19086 for ; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:08:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout28.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA26386; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:08:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970710220309_390049994@emout07.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 811 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:08:06 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/7/97 11:23:40 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >I have been thinking about this telescope idea, apertures and resolving >power. The recent launch of HALCA in February made me wonder. HALCA works >in concert with ground-based telescopes, allowing astronomers to simulate >a dish with a diameter as large as 28,000 kilometers and a resolving >power-the ability to detect fine details-more than 100 times higher than >that of the Hubble Space Telescope. Of course it is limited by the radius >of its orbit plus or minus one earth diameter. > >So the question is: what exactly is the distance between the leading >LaGrange point and the trailing LaGrange point? It would be awfully >convenient if it was 300,000 km.... > >Lee Parker Closer to 500,000 km I think. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 10 20:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["348" "Thu" "10" "July" "1997" "21:15:35" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "12" "Re: starship-design: Telescopes the size of worlds?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA05757 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 20:15:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA05745 for ; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 20:15:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-93.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-93.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.93]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA22432; Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:15:41 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C5B366.4312@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <970710220313_-626011911@emout11.mail.aol.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 347 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: KellySt@aol.com CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Telescopes the size of worlds? Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:15:35 -0700 KellySt@aol.com wrote: > > Its not going to be a solid scope! Its just a lose formation of 1-2 meter > telescopes and a big computer to integrate the image data into a virtual > scope. On the sheilf technology. But never used on this scale before. > Ah, I see now. An array. I'll support that, since its perfectly possible. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 11 00:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["662" "Fri" "11" "July" "1997" "00:18:08" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "19" "Re: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id AAA21918 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:18:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id AAA21898 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:18:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts8-line6.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.70]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA09442 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:16:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id AAA12619; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:18:08 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707110718.AAA12619@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <970710220309_390049994@emout07.mail.aol.com> References: <970710220309_390049994@emout07.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 661 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Telescopes in Orbit Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:18:08 -0700 KellySt@aol.com writes: > > In a message dated 7/7/97 11:23:40 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) > wrote: > > >So the question is: what exactly is the distance between the leading > >LaGrange point and the trailing LaGrange point? It would be awfully > >convenient if it was 300,000 km.... > > > >Lee Parker > > Closer to 500,000 km I think. The L4 and L5 points are 60 degrees ahead of and behind the Moon in its orbit; the points form equilateral triangles with the Moon and Earth. Since the Moon's orbital radius is about 400,000 km, the distance between the L4 and L5 points would be about sqrt(3)/2 * 800,000 or some 700,000 km apart. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 11 02:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["740" "Fri" "11" "July" "1997" "11:56:26" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "23" "starship-design: Re: Truely adventurous" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA00717 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:59:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA00699 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:59:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-021.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wmcTx-000EsbC; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:59:21 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 739 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Truely adventurous Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:56:26 +0100 Hello Antonio, >Hello Timothy, Once again, please forgive me my little rant. I shall >edeavor to manifest considerably more judicious serenity henceforth >(cross my heart... :). Thank you for your detailed background, it makes it easier to better understand the ideas behind letters. >>It is not directly "un-adventurous" what I meant, >>it is more "controlled adventure". > >I am sure we agree on that one. As with many subjective words, they can be used with a range of meanings. It may well be that I'm often a bit of from the most common meaning, but with a few extra words, things will usually clear up. I think I've been more individual during my younger years and therefore was tempted less to conform to standards. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 11 05:43 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4074" "Fri" "11" "July" "1997" "14:40:30" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "93" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA19956 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 05:43:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA19943 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 05:43:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-017.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wmf2j-000EzSC; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 14:43:25 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4073 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 14:40:30 +0100 Kelly, >>If a few bacteria leak out, they may very well be killed before they can >>replicate and mutate. >>And if indeed aliens are in abundance, they may have infected Earth long >>ago. >>Furthermore, there is speculation that microbes come to Earth by meteorites >>and dirty snowballs every day. > >Why? If they were alien, the local life form would have no adaptations tuned >for them. Usually that sort of thing leads to major pagues. Immune systems usually see almost every non-self organism as dangerous. I wouldn't think that it doesn't matter much whether the non-self organism comes from space or Earth. In some cases the body even starts killing something of itself, this is called an auto-immune disease. >As to the microbes from space, thats a very thinly defined theory. Besides >it still gets back to no signs of alien organisms alive here now. The latter is exactly the point I wanted to make. No apparent signs, so whatever comes down, doesn't seem to spread. >>You may have a point about older cultures. But I believe that for many today >>the world view would change more than they could cope with. My best guess >>is, that old civilisations believed in miracles, so a strange species wasn't >>much of a shock. (I believe that several European explorers where seen as >>gods) >>A reason to believe that mentality has changed too is that not so many >>centuries ago, the fear for the unknown was really bad (witchhunt). > >I doubt aliens would change anything for people. Oh it would be an >interesting spike in conversation (like the microbes from Mars) but it >doesn't change anything fundamental. The bulk of folks expect their is life >out their. Haviong it show up would be a shock, but not one that effects >anything fundamental to us. Expecting it, has shown to be completely different from knowing it. Everyone knows that it is quite likely that something terrible can be expected to happen to them during their lifetime. Yet many get badly hurt psychologically when it actually happens. Primordial microbes from Mars hardly compare to beings that have technology that looks like magic. >Sort of like the moon landings. People thought that would change everything. >It changed nearly nothing. Hmm, I think in this case the reverse would have been true. If it had failed, it would have changed a lot. It might have been a real big disappointment with bad results for the space-programme. >>Also for quite some time, sudden balance shifts in economical and military >>power would have been rather critical. >>This can't be bogus, otherwise I'd see little reason for certain programs to >>be secret (stealth planes). > >They keep them secret so the other side doesn't have a chance to prepare to >defend against them, or copy them. Niether a big concern for aliens. I didn't mean we were a threath to the aliens. If they start spreading technology, some nations may use it in a different way than intended, which may change world power in sudden ways. (Eg. Give Saddam Hoessein a ZPE bomb, which he nicely puts somewhere in New York.) >Also abos confrounted with culture vastly beyond theirs don't fold up and >die. They just want in! Luckely they were only with few. Imagine 5 billion people knocking on your door for the latest technology and information. Scary! >>>Besides. We never worry much about droping in on aborigional cultures. >> >>The reason for us dropping in on aborigional cultures is usually for >>resources. What happened to the aboriginals seemed to be less important with >>the result that it disappeared rather fast. >> >>Aliens are likely to have little interest in resources on Earth, so >>contacting us would likely only create problems. > >We destroy or push aside abos for their land, but we drop in as >anthropologists. Not to trash them. > >If Aliens came all this way, we'ld be the major area of interest on this >rock. True, but dropping in as anthropologists would certainly destroy what they where looking for. Only if they are psychologists, they would enjoy playing games with us. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 11 12:09 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2813" "Fri" "11" "July" "1997" "16:04:55" "-0300" "Antonio C T Rocha" "arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br" nil "51" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA06518 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:09:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.1]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA06430 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:09:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Metacor.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (dl0106-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.106]) by srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (8.8.5/SCA-6.6) with ESMTP id TAA27308 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 19:04:19 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C683D6.3794FDCF@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Organization: is unrealistic X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Antonio C T Rocha Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2812 From: Antonio C T Rocha Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 16:04:55 -0300 Hello, This discussion certainly is broad in scope. A few thoughts that ocurred regarding it are (if I may): 1. If we have been exposed to (and maybe originated from) space-born biological material, then local life is probably reasonably well suited to deal with any life originating within "average" distance. Maybe it even is "similar" to it. 2. Less-advanced Aliens will probably be from close by, allowing us a reasonable chance at biological self-defence. Advanced aliens shall probably have advanced microbots (or whatever) to "secure the perimeter" - whatever that might mean to them. Maybe they would not want to contaminate local life with their own - and have the technology and will to do it. 3. Alien minds might work in Alien ways - based on shockingly different premises or rules. Their logic might not be "accessible" to us. It might not make sense. It is hoping a lot to expect them to think like us, with our emotional, dichotomic, bilaterally symmetric, golden-mean tropic logic. All premises from 2. onwards might be completely off the mark. On the other hand, similar life might lead to similar logic in similar beings. In that case, there could be a chance for it to be dichotomic, bilaterally or spherically symmetrical, maybe emotional, doubtfully golden-mean or fibonacci-series susceptible. 3a. On life: microbes have been found on earth that thrive in anoxic, acid-rich hundreds-degree Celsius hot environments. Ditto for orgs living near sulfur-rich thermal vents on the ocean floor. Coupled with the space-born life hypothesis, this suggests that life is probable on any nearby planet without too much radiation and sufficient heat (20-700 degrees Celsius). Venus and the gas giants immediately come to mind. Furthermore, if you accept that similar structure leads to similar logic, it suggests that alien life might be "comprehensible", even if only in the most abstract sense. 4. 5 billion people is a lot to us, but could be a hamlet to a gregarious space-faring race. Again, aliens are alien. They might not be composed of individuals as we understand the term. 5. *Very* advanced technology might not be limited to our little bubble of space-time or suffer its ...er... limitations. But there are always the less-technologically advanced space-farers - no reason why they couldn't be messy, noisy housekeepers (just like we are and shall probably ever be). 6. In our pattern of society, it is usually adventurers, traders, colonizers, castaways and fugitives who first contact new cultures. The priests and scientists usually follow long after. By then, the damage has already been done. The abos have to face the cultural shock and meet the visitors new demands as best they can. _If_ the aliens are like us, that's the way it might go. Otherwise, who can tell? Antonio From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 11 12:09 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1456" "Fri" "11" "July" "1997" "10:54:08" "-0300" "Antonio C T Rocha" "arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br" nil "55" "Re: starship-design: I have many questions..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA06521 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:09:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.1]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA06475 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:09:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Metacor.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (dl0106-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.106]) by srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (8.8.5/SCA-6.6) with ESMTP id TAA27281 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 19:04:11 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C63AFF.48594BC5@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Organization: is unrealistic X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <970710215441_1446654963@emout09.mail.aol.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Antonio C T Rocha Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1455 From: Antonio C T Rocha Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: I have many questions... Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:54:08 -0300 KellySt@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 7/10/97 5:22:27 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) > wrote: > > >Greetings, > > > >I am working on something and wish to get my underlying physics > correct > >(Steve, you taught me to do this) and have some questions I hope some > of > >you can answer: > > > >1: If you were placed at creation beyond lightspeed, could you > continue > >being in an FTL state? > > > >2: If you are beyond lightspeed, can you continue accelerating? > > > >3: Can light be slowed down in a medium to less than 99.99c? > > > >4: If you are beyond lightspeed in a dense medium, what happens? (it > has > >happened) > > > >5: If you are travelling FTL, can you ever slow down below c? > > > >Kyle Mcallister > > Depends on whos theories you by, or how you got to hyper light. > Tacyonic > theiry suggests that in tacyon space (for want of a better word) > everything > is like here, all the normal laws work, but your going hyperlight. > You don't > notice it because your sublight in that universe, but FTL to us, and > we seem > FTL to you there. If you decelerate to a stop in that universe (land > of > imaginary numbers) you would be going infinate relative to us. > Accelerate to > lightspeed and you'll be at light speed to us also. > > Kelly Time would be negative over there, relative to us - and vice-versa -, implying that their universe looks "normal" to them and we look supraluminal. And vice-versa. Antonio From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 12 19:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["885" "Sat" "12" "July" "1997" "20:28:28" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "29" "starship-design: Black Holes, and everything else" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA01054 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 12 Jul 1997 19:28:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01045 for ; Sat, 12 Jul 1997 19:28:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-111.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-111.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.111]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA25186; Sat, 12 Jul 1997 22:28:30 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C84B5B.7F60@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 884 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Black Holes, and everything else Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:28:28 -0700 Hello Ken Can black holes distort space severely? If so, I have a theory to explain the gravitation problem you mentioned. To all (including Ken): Some questions: If you can exceed C, if there was some other environment in which C was faster than 300,000 m/sec, could you legally exceed that region's lightspeed if you were travelling faster than that limit? If so, I've thought of something... What happens in a casimir cavity exactly? What happens when a casimir generator is built in the shape of a sphere, to the interior of the sphere? (charged spheres between on another) Why is light sped above C in a casimir cavity? Is it really FTL, or just C increased? I know this is off the subject, but: A final thought: We have found no magnetic monopoles as of yet. I know why. If you think about it, you'll see its very simple. Remember attraction/repulsion. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 13 04:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["115" "Sun" "13" "July" "1997" "13:41:25" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "9" "" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA12632 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 04:44:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA12623 for ; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 04:44:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-006.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wnN4i-000FfeC; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 13:44:24 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 114 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 13:41:25 +0100 Kyle, Are you systematically asking everyone questions about exotic phenomena? What are you up to? ;) Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 13 11:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["362" "Sun" "13" "July" "1997" "12:13:36" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "18" "starship-design: Re: " "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA10894 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 11:13:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA10856 for ; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 11:13:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-98.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-98.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.98]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA06215; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 14:13:52 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C928E0.1AA@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 361 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, Timothy van der Linden Subject: starship-design: Re: Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 12:13:36 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > Kyle, > > Are you systematically asking everyone questions about exotic phenomena? I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. > > What are you up to? ;) Very many things. Theoretical, most of it; If sucessful, it could bring new propulsion ideas to SSD. Have I done something wrong? I'm just curious. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 13 15:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["526" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "00:30:41" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "20" "starship-design: Curious" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA10184 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 15:33:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA10150 for ; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 15:33:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-012.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wnXD2-000EsJC; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 00:33:40 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 525 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Curious Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 00:30:41 +0100 Kyle, >>Are you systematically asking everyone questions about exotic phenomena? > >I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. Well, you first asked Steve about FTL, then me about negative gravity, and now Ken about space distortion. >>What are you up to? ;) > >Very many things. Theoretical, most of it; If sucessful, it could bring >new propulsion ideas to SSD. Have I done something wrong? No, nothing wrong, I'm just curious. And now after you wondering of doing something wrong, I'm even more curious :) Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 13 16:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1009" "Sun" "13" "July" "1997" "17:00:58" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "26" "Re: starship-design: Curious" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA16551 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 16:01:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA16520 for ; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 16:01:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-102.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-102.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.102]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA23719; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 19:01:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C96C39.2C54@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1008 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: Timothy van der Linden CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Curious Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 17:00:58 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > > Well, you first asked Steve about FTL, then me about negative gravity, and > now Ken about space distortion. I'm simply trying to get the opinions/theories of each person, and then compare ideas. I have asked many others about such things, also. > > >>What are you up to? ;) > > > >Very many things. Theoretical, most of it; If sucessful, it could bring > >new propulsion ideas to SSD. Have I done something wrong? > > No, nothing wrong, I'm just curious. > And now after you wondering of doing something wrong, I'm even more curious :) I thought maybe SSD was getting tired of my asking questions. In my message "black holes, and everything else", I wrote: "To All:", which indicated a general query to all SSD members. If I write "to (someone):", it is intended mainly for that person, but if someone else has information on that subject, they are welcome to share it. When I ask only one person, I send private E-mail. Sorry about the confusion. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 13 20:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["594" "Sun" "13" "July" "1997" "21:16:28" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "19" "starship-design: Alcubierre paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA17098 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 20:17:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA17078 for ; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 20:16:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-102.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-78.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.78]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA29693; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:16:36 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C9A81B.3702@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 593 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: stevev@efn.org CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Alcubierre paper Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 21:16:28 -0700 Steve: The postscript file I mentioned is the Alcubierre FTL paper. I remember you said you'd like to see it, so I E-mailed you. Its at: http://www.astro.cf.ac.uk/groups/relativity/papers/abstracts/miguel94a/miguel94a.ps.gz I don't know what the .gz means, but it works as a PostScript file on my viewer. There's also a .GIF image to go with it, but their copy doesn't work, so if you'd like it, I'll send it. I'm sending this CC to SSD in case anyone else wants to read the paper. If you don't have PostScript capability, I'll tell you where you can find it. (Its free) Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 13 20:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["742" "Sun" "13" "July" "1997" "21:36:15" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "24" "starship-design: Alcubierre paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA22299 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 20:36:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA22211 for ; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 20:36:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-91.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-91.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.91]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA17348; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:36:30 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33C9ACBE.2A01@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33C9A81B.3702@sunherald.infi.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 741 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: stevev@efn.org, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Alcubierre paper Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 21:36:15 -0700 Steve: The postscript file I mentioned is the Alcubierre FTL paper. I remember you said you'd like to see it, so I E-mailed you. Its at: http://www.astro.cf.ac.uk/groups/relativity/papers/abstracts/miguel94a/miguel94a.ps.gz I don't know what the .gz means, but it works as a PostScript file on my viewer. There's also a .GIF image to go with it, but their copy doesn't work, so if you'd like it, I'll send it. Oops! My mistake: the image is .ps NOT .gif. It can be found at: http://www.astro.cf.ac.uk/groups/relativity/papers/abstracts/miguel94a/fig1.ps I'm sending this CC to SSD in case anyone else wants to read the paper. If you don't have PostScript capability, I'll tell you where you can find it. (Its free) Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 02:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["548" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "11:09:29" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "20" "starship-design: Re: Alcubierre paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA27287 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 02:12:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA27267 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 02:12:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-014.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wnhBF-000GdvC; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:12:29 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 547 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Alcubierre paper Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:09:29 +0100 To Kyle et all, >The postscript file I mentioned is the Alcubierre FTL paper. I remember >you said you'd like to see it, so I E-mailed you. > >Its at: > >http://www.astro.cf.ac.uk/groups/relativity/papers/abstracts/miguel94a/migu el94a.ps.gz > >I don't know what the .gz means, but it works as a PostScript file on my >viewer. There's also a .GIF image to go with it, but their copy doesn't >work, so if you'd like it, I'll send it. Their Postscript image works, but they forgot to add .gz to the filename. (That is, it is GNUzipped.) Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 02:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2368" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "11:09:27" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "53" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA27379 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 02:12:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA27369 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 02:12:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-014.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wnhBC-000GdwC; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:12:26 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2367 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:09:27 +0100 Antonio wrote, >1. If we have been exposed to (and maybe originated from) space-born >biological material, then local life is probably reasonably well suited >to deal with any life originating within "average" distance. Maybe it >even is "similar" to it. That was exactly my (unwritten) thought when I wrote about "dirty snowballs" and alike. >2. Less-advanced Aliens will probably be from close by, allowing us a >reasonable chance at biological self-defence. Advanced aliens shall >probably have advanced microbots (or whatever) to "secure the perimeter" Interesting idea: "securing their perimeter" > 3a. On life: microbes have been found on earth that thrive in >anoxic, acid-rich hundreds-degree Celsius hot environments. Ditto for >orgs living near sulfur-rich thermal vents on the ocean floor. Coupled >with the space-born life hypothesis, this suggests that life is probable >on any nearby planet without too much radiation and sufficient heat >(20-700 degrees Celsius). Venus and the gas giants immediately come to >mind. I resently heard that gassious planets would provide a too unstable environment for primeordial life (no evidence given of course). Usually land is considered already too unstable for live to originate. So just for that matter Venus is much less likely to have life. >4. 5 billion people is a lot to us, but could be a hamlet to a >gregarious space-faring race. Again, aliens are alien. They might not be >composed of individuals as we understand the term. True, if they had nanobots to do the work for them, it would matter little. But of course providing the technology is not the only thing. Teaching responsibility is another usually lengthy process. >6. In our pattern of society, it is usually adventurers, traders, >colonizers, castaways and fugitives who first contact new cultures. The >priests and scientists usually follow long after. By then, the damage >has already been done. The abos have to face the cultural shock and meet >the visitors new demands as best they can. _If_ the aliens are like us, >that's the way it might go. Otherwise, who can tell? Hmmm, so far space has only been visited by scientists. Maybe the analogy isn't as simple. And once again, why take the risk to be disected for making contact with Earthlings while you have more luxury than Earth people will have for centuries. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 08:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["321" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "09:12:20" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "11" "starship-design: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA05815 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 08:12:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA05797 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 08:12:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-98.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-98.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.98]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA24357 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:12:36 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CA4FE3.F5@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 320 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Aliens Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 09:12:20 -0700 Greetings: I read about the thought of life on a gas planet. I think its possible, but wonder (I know this will sound dumb): what would they build spaceships out of? Its a logical question. Kyle Mcallister P.S.: Maybe large moons (mars-or earth-sized) with atmospheres could support life around a close-in gas giant. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 11:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1788" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "14:23:33" "-0400" "Bakelaar" "bakelaar@injersey.com" nil "45" "starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA22599 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:22:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nj5.injersey.com (root@nj5.injersey.com [206.139.48.252]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA22578 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:22:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pbakelaar.exit109.com (ppp142-tmrv.injersey.com [206.139.59.142]) by nj5.injersey.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id OAA17682 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 14:23:33 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707141823.OAA17682@nj5.injersey.com> X-Sender: bakelaar@injersey.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Bakelaar Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1787 From: Bakelaar Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 14:23:33 -0400 (EDT) article: it sounds like science fiction: a fountain of antmatter spewing from the center of our galaxy. but that is just what astronomers claim they have discovered, using nasa's compton gamma ray observatory satellite. launched into eart orbit six years ago, the observatory monitors the heavens for emissions of gamma rays. in april, a research team led by astronomers at northwestern univ. and the naval research lab. in washington announced that the observatory had foudn gamma rays emanating from a fountain- shaped region that appears to originate at the milky way's center. the high energy gammy-ray emissions were measured at 511,000 electron volts - precisely the energy produced when positrons (the antiparticles of electrons) are annihilated by collisions with normal matter. "its an unmistakable signature of the annihilation" says charles dermer, a theorist at the navy lab who is helping to interpret the findings. what could be generating the positrons? on earth, positrons are produced by the decay of certain radioactive isotopes but are quickly destroyed when they collide. dermer and colleague jeff skibo point out that positrons are also produced by supernovas, explosions of massive stars. successions of supernovas at the milky way's center could have sent a fountain of hot gases, mixed with positrons, shooting high above the galactic plane. mingling with the hot gad would destroy the positrons and produce the observed gamma rays, astronomers say. however, other scientists have proposed a different source for the positrons: one or more black holes believed to exist at the galaxy's center. by andrew chaikin so guys, what do you think of this? id like to hear what you think... if its true or not, if they got anything wrong... etc etc. ben From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 19:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["80" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "20:26:44" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "6" "starship-design: I know this is off the subject but..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA01261 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:26:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01246 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:26:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-98.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.85]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA24854 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:26:42 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CAEDF3.276E@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 79 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: I know this is off the subject but... Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:26:44 -0700 Greetings: Has anyone actually built a magnetic monopole? (I'm serious) Kyle From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 20:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["405" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "20:15:00" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "14" "starship-design: I know this is off the subject but..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA12943 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:14:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA12929 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:14:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts7-line13.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.60]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA03364; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:13:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA25872; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:15:00 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707150315.UAA25872@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CAEDF3.276E@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CAEDF3.276E@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 404 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: I know this is off the subject but... Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:15:00 -0700 kyle writes: > Greetings: > > Has anyone actually built a magnetic monopole? (I'm serious) > > Kyle As far as I remember from my physics classes, you can't really build them, but there could be some left over from the Big Bang (big maybe). If they exist, then they'd be pretty easy to detect (assuming one passed through an appropriate detector) and would have a variety of useful applications. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 20:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3616" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "23:33:08" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "77" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA17961 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:33:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA17951 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:33:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA12370; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:33:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970714233307_-1393272598@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3615 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:33:08 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/11/97 5:36:13 PM, arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br (Antonio C T Rocha) wrote: >Hello, >This discussion certainly is broad in scope. A few thoughts that ocurred >regarding it are (if I may): >1. If we have been exposed to (and maybe originated from) space-born >biological material, then local life is probably reasonably well suited >to deal with any life originating within "average" distance. Maybe it >even is "similar" to it. How good are we at dealing with deseases from other continents, even africa (where we evolved)? The Indians were whiped out by Euro deseases. >2. Less-advanced Aliens will probably be from close by, allowing us a >reasonable chance at biological self-defence. Advanced aliens shall >probably have advanced microbots (or whatever) to "secure the perimeter" >- whatever that might mean to them. Maybe they would not want to >contaminate local life with their own - and have the technology and will >to do it. Maybe no one goes near other biosphere until the locals are high enough tech to talk to and verify the effective decontamination proceedures? >3. Alien minds might work in Alien ways - based on shockingly different >premises or rules. Their logic might not be "accessible" to us. It might >not make sense. It is hoping a lot to expect them to think like us, with >our emotional, dichotomic, bilaterally symmetric, golden-mean tropic >logic. All premises from 2. onwards might be completely off the mark. On >the other hand, similar life might lead to similar logic in similar >beings. In that case, there could be a chance for it to be dichotomic, >bilaterally or spherically symmetrical, maybe emotional, doubtfully >golden-mean or fibonacci-series susceptible. Probably we'ld have a reasonable easy time talking about science or the universe, since its an external we both need to adapt to. But internal emotional/values issues could be mind boggling. > 3a. On life: microbes have been found on earth that thrive in >anoxic, acid-rich hundreds-degree Celsius hot environments. Ditto for >orgs living near sulfur-rich thermal vents on the ocean floor. Coupled >with the space-born life hypothesis, this suggests that life is probable >on any nearby planet without too much radiation and sufficient heat >(20-700 degrees Celsius). Venus and the gas giants immediately come to >mind. Furthermore, if you accept that similar structure leads to similar >logic, it suggests that alien life might be "comprehensible", even if >only in the most abstract sense. >4. 5 billion people is a lot to us, but could be a hamlet to a >gregarious space-faring race. Again, aliens are alien. They might not be >composed of individuals as we understand the term. >5. *Very* advanced technology might not be limited to our little bubble >of space-time or suffer its ...er... limitations. But there are always >the less-technologically advanced space-farers - no reason why they >couldn't be messy, noisy housekeepers (just like we are and shall >probably ever be). Really. "Hi! Sorry about the moon. Little trouble with the hyperdrive. But the debris field should be much easier to mine!" ;) >6. In our pattern of society, it is usually adventurers, traders, >colonizers, castaways and fugitives who first contact new cultures. The >priests and scientists usually follow long after. By then, the damage >has already been done. The abos have to face the cultural shock and meet >the visitors new demands as best they can. _If_ the aliens are like us, >that's the way it might go. Otherwise, who can tell? > >Antonio So many ideas, so little data. :( Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 20:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5413" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "23:36:41" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "138" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA18612 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:37:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout16.mail.aol.com (emout16.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.42]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA18598 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:37:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA27878; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:36:41 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970714233302_390568607@emout16.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5412 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:36:41 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/11/97 10:52:29 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >>>If a few bacteria leak out, they may very well be killed before they can >>>replicate and mutate. >>>And if indeed aliens are in abundance, they may have infected Earth long >>>ago. >>>Furthermore, there is speculation that microbes come to Earth by meteorites >>>and dirty snowballs every day. >> >>Why? If they were alien, the local life form would have no adaptations tuned >>for them. Usually that sort of thing leads to major pagues. > >Immune systems usually see almost every non-self organism as dangerous. I >wouldn't think that it doesn't matter much whether the non-self organism >comes from space or Earth. >In some cases the body even starts killing something of itself, this is >called an auto-immune disease. Immune systems arn't that good at detecting, much less combating, 'any' non-self organism. They are best at detecting and defeating things that the organism routinly is attacked by. Alien micro life would not be something were 'tuned' to fight or look for. >>As to the microbes from space, thats a very thinly defined theory. Besides >>it still gets back to no signs of alien organisms alive here now. > >The latter is exactly the point I wanted to make. No apparent signs, so >whatever comes down, doesn't seem to spread. Or never came here, or whiped out an area to quickly to sustain itself. >>>You may have a point about older cultures. But I believe that for many today >>>the world view would change more than they could cope with. My best guess >>>is, that old civilisations believed in miracles, so a strange species wasn't >>>much of a shock. (I believe that several European explorers where seen as >>>gods) >>>A reason to believe that mentality has changed too is that not so many >>>centuries ago, the fear for the unknown was really bad (witchhunt). >> >>I doubt aliens would change anything for people. Oh it would be an >>interesting spike in conversation (like the microbes from Mars) but it >>doesn't change anything fundamental. The bulk of folks expect their is life >>out their. Haviong it show up would be a shock, but not one that effects >>anything fundamental to us. > >Expecting it, has shown to be completely different from knowing it. >Everyone knows that it is quite likely that something terrible can be >expected to happen to them during their lifetime. Yet many get badly hurt >psychologically when it actually happens. >Primordial microbes from Mars hardly compare to beings that have technology >that looks like magic. Still its unlikely to make us all run home and hide under the bed. It never did before when we encountered alien (foreign) cultures with magical technologies and alien forms. I can't see we'ld be that much less able to handel the same thing now or in the future? >>Sort of like the moon landings. People thought that would change everything. >>It changed nearly nothing. > >Hmm, I think in this case the reverse would have been true. If it had >failed, it would have changed a lot. It might have been a real big >disappointment with bad results for the space-programme. If it failed the real significant impact would have been international relations and soviet vs U.S. world power. But to people involved or interested in the space program, it was a basic assumption that once the door was opened we'ld stream out onto the new frounteir. Didn't happen. >>>Also for quite some time, sudden balance shifts in economical and military >>>power would have been rather critical. >>>This can't be bogus, otherwise I'd see little reason for certain programs to >>>be secret (stealth planes). >> >>They keep them secret so the other side doesn't have a chance to prepare to >>defend against them, or copy them. Niether a big concern for aliens. > >I didn't mean we were a threath to the aliens. If they start spreading >technology, some nations may use it in a different way than intended, which >may change world power in sudden ways. (Eg. Give Saddam Hoessein a ZPE bomb, >which he nicely puts somewhere in New York.) My point was the aliens wouldn't care about those effects. If we can't play nice with the new toys, thats our problem. >>Also abos confrounted with culture vastly beyond theirs don't fold up and >>die. They just want in! > >Luckely they were only with few. Imagine 5 billion people knocking on your >door for the latest technology and information. Scary! Send them the info via E-mail. ;) Besides to a galactic civilization, 5 billion is a few. >>>>Besides. We never worry much about droping in on aborigional cultures. >>> >>>The reason for us dropping in on aborigional cultures is usually for >>>resources. What happened to the aboriginals seemed to be less important with >>>the result that it disappeared rather fast. >>> >>>Aliens are likely to have little interest in resources on Earth, so >>>contacting us would likely only create problems. >> >>We destroy or push aside abos for their land, but we drop in as >>anthropologists. Not to trash them. >> >>If Aliens came all this way, we'ld be the major area of interest on this >>rock. > >True, but dropping in as anthropologists would certainly destroy what they >where looking for. Only if they are psychologists, they would enjoy playing >games with us. > >Timothy Anthropologists would tend to disagree. Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 20:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["261" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "21:53:17" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "10" "starship-design: Magnetic Monopoles?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA22379 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:53:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA22355 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:53:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-98.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-91.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.91]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA26586 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:53:12 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CB023D.5B7C@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 260 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Magnetic Monopoles? Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:53:17 -0700 In Addition to my last message: I have constructed a device that (depending on the polarity) puts out ONLY north or south polarity, but not both. Interested? Could be VERY useful. Kyle Mcallister P.S.: I am as serious as I have ever been in my entire life. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 20:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["398" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "20:57:59" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "15" "starship-design: Magnetic Monopoles?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA23952 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:57:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA23940 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:57:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts7-line13.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.60]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA11851; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:56:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA26111; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:57:59 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707150357.UAA26111@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CB023D.5B7C@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CB023D.5B7C@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 397 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Magnetic Monopoles? Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:57:59 -0700 kyle writes: > In Addition to my last message: > > I have constructed a device that (depending on the polarity) puts out > ONLY north or south polarity, but not both. Interested? Could be VERY > useful. > > Kyle Mcallister > > P.S.: I am as serious as I have ever been in my entire life. You should demo it to some physicists. I'm sure they'd be interested. Especially if it works. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 14 21:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["397" "Mon" "14" "July" "1997" "22:15:31" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "12" "Re: starship-design: Magnetic Monopoles?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA27862 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:15:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA27848 for ; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:15:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-98.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-110.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.110]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA18157; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 00:15:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CB0773.5E85@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33CB023D.5B7C@sunherald.infi.net> <199707150357.UAA26111@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 396 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: starship-design: Magnetic Monopoles? Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:15:31 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > You should demo it to some physicists. I'm sure they'd be interested. > Especially if it works. What should I do, take it to some physists near me, and demonstrate it? What kind of physicist should I take it to? More than one? Should I dismantle it to show them how it works internally? Sorry about the questions, but I haven't done something like this yet. Kyle From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 08:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["509" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "16:25:58" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" "" "20" "starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA19892 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:49:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA19868 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:49:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wo8b1-000FPzC; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:28:55 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 508 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but... Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:25:58 +0100 Kyle asked: >Has anyone actually built a magnetic monopole? (I'm serious) If you can build one, you are able to violate current laws of physics. So if you could proof this thing to work, you'd be a candidate for a Nobelprize. Kyle also wrote: >I have constructed a device that (depending on the polarity) puts out >ONLY north or south polarity, but not both. Interested? Could be VERY >useful. Measuring mono-polarity seems to be worth a scientific paper already... How did you measure that? Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 08:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["951" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "16:26:00" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "27" "starship-design: Re: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA20003 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:50:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA19965 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:50:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wo8b2-000FPyC; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:28:56 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 950 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:26:00 +0100 Ben, Indeed 28 Apr 1997 the NASA newsletter wrote about "Antimatter Clouds and Fountain Discovered in the Milky Way" >however, other scientists have proposed a different source for >the positrons: one or more black holes believed to exist at >the galaxy's center. >so guys, what do you think of this? id like to hear >what you think... if its true or not, if they got anything >wrong... etc etc. The 511KeV signature has indeed been seen for a long time where electrons and positrons annihilate. Likely astronomic disasters (supernovea etc.) work like particle accelerators and thus can create similar particles. So yes, it is quite sure positrons are available (They don't know for how long though, they may well be annihilated microseconds after their creation.) The source is likely to be guesswork until better observations and models become available. The big disadvantage for practical use is that this source is too far away. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 08:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["453" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "16:26:01" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "14" "starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA20152 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:51:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA20125 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:51:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wo8b4-000FQ5C; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:28:58 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 452 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:26:01 +0100 Kyle wondered: >I read about the thought of life on a gas planet. I think its possible, >but wonder (I know this will sound dumb): what would they build >spaceships out of? Its a logical question. They can use dead bodies to extract the materials from. Sorry to be so crude, but your question probably should have been, what are these creatures build of? If you know the answer, than you most likely know the source for spaceship material. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 08:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3054" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "16:26:03" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "72" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA20305 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:51:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA20271 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:51:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wo8b5-000FQ4C; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:28:59 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3053 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:26:03 +0100 Kelly, >>Immune systems usually see almost every non-self organism as dangerous. I >>wouldn't think that it doesn't matter much whether the non-self organism >>comes from space or Earth. >>In some cases the body even starts killing something of itself, this is >>called an auto-immune disease. > >Immune systems arn't that good at detecting, much less combating, 'any' >non-self organism. They are best at detecting and defeating things that the >organism routinly is attacked by. Alien micro life would not be something >were 'tuned' to fight or look for. As far as I know they are quite good at detecting, only finding the "antidote" before it is too late can be a problem. However antibiotics usually can help quite a lot. And even if we were not immune to alien bacteria, would we be able to spot it? Likely there are more Earthly bacteria that kill people than Space bacteria. >>>As to the microbes from space, thats a very thinly defined theory. Besides >>>it still gets back to no signs of alien organisms alive here now. >> >>The latter is exactly the point I wanted to make. No apparent signs, so >>whatever comes down, doesn't seem to spread. > >Or never came here, or whiped out an area to quickly to sustain itself. Well, that's why I didn't mention it the other discussion :) To get back to the point: Why would alien bacteria survive better than Earth bacteria? >>Expecting it, has shown to be completely different from knowing it. >>Everyone knows that it is quite likely that something terrible can be >>expected to happen to them during their lifetime. Yet many get badly hurt >>psychologically when it actually happens. >>Primordial microbes from Mars hardly compare to beings that have technology >>that looks like magic. > >Still its unlikely to make us all run home and hide under the bed. It never >did before when we encountered alien (foreign) cultures with magical >technologies and alien forms. I can't see we'ld be that much less able to >handel the same thing now or in the future? Which "cultures with magical technology" do you mean. I can't recall when WE encountered them before. True other cultures did, but I thought they usually believed in magic. >>I didn't mean we were a threath to the aliens. If they start spreading >>technology, some nations may use it in a different way than intended, which >>may change world power in sudden ways. (Eg. Give Saddam Hoessein a ZPE bomb, >>which he nicely puts somewhere in New York.) > >My point was the aliens wouldn't care about those effects. If we can't play >nice with the new toys, thats our problem. Why then contact us and give us the data? Just for the fun to see what happens? >>>If Aliens came all this way, we'ld be the major area of interest on this >>>rock. >> >>True, but dropping in as anthropologists would certainly destroy what they >>where looking for. Only if they are psychologists, they would enjoy playing >>games with us. > >Anthropologists would tend to disagree. What good is destroying your test subject if your only example? Tim From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 08:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1533" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "08:57:38" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "38" "starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA23458 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:57:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA23440; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:57:38 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707151557.IAA23440@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1532 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but... Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:57:38 -0700 (PDT) Timothy van der Linden writes: > Kyle asked: > > >Has anyone actually built a magnetic monopole? (I'm serious) > > If you can build one, you are able to violate current laws of physics. > So if you could proof this thing to work, you'd be a candidate for a Nobelprize. Maxwell's equations can be slightly modified to account for monopoles; changing a zero to a constant in the equation that describes magnetic flux would deal with the monopole case. However, since no one has ever observed a monopole (yet) it's believed that the current formulation of Maxwell's equations is correct. > Kyle also wrote: > > >I have constructed a device that (depending on the polarity) puts out > >ONLY north or south polarity, but not both. Interested? Could be VERY > >useful. > > Measuring mono-polarity seems to be worth a scientific paper already... How > did you measure that? > > Timothy Actually, it's fairly easy to detect a monopole. The detector I heard of is simply a loop of superconducting material. A monopole passing through the loop would induce a current flow that would remain in the loop after the passage of the monpole, unlike a dipole which after passing through the loop would leave no net current flow. So, Kyle, there's a simple experimental test for your alleged monopole. I'm sure that consultation with a physicist would either allow you to test your monopole or get you an explanation of why you don't really have one. If you thought I was skeptical, try dealing with a real physicist :-) From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 13:49 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1710" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "22:46:12" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "39" "starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA29742 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 13:49:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA29665 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 13:49:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-024.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0woEWw-000HAeC; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 22:49:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1709 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but... Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 22:46:12 +0100 Steve wrote: >Maxwell's equations can be slightly modified to account for monopoles; >changing a zero to a constant in the equation that describes magnetic >flux would deal with the monopole case. I never really liked the Maxwell approach to magnetics. Einstein's approach (relativistic velocity addition) seems to be more fundamental and gives more insight. I would not know how to incorporate monopoles into the latter theory, unless space is warped in strange ways (like anti-gravity). >However, since no one has ever observed a monopole (yet) it's believed >that the current formulation of Maxwell's equations is correct. Just there is not a current observation of repulsive-gravity. >Actually, it's fairly easy to detect a monopole. The detector I heard >of is simply a loop of superconducting material. A monopole passing >through the loop would induce a current flow that would remain in the >loop after the passage of the monpole, unlike a dipole which after >passing through the loop would leave no net current flow. Yes, that would work, except that it may be difficult to have 100% symmetry doing it like this: Suppose you've a normal magnet, how do you know that you have moved it an exact equal distance from "in front of" to "at the back of" the superconductor? To be able to do this you should be able to figure out where the "center of magnetivity" of the magnet is. To avoid this problem, you may turn around the monopole in the neighbourhood of the superconductor. After a 360 degree turn, the current in the superconductor before and after should be the same. (Of course if you have a big magnetic monopole, the crude method will give results that speak for themselves) Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 14:03 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["349" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "15:03:11" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" "<33CBF39E.4FAC@sunherald.infi.net>" "11" "starship-design: Magnetic Monopole" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA06986 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:03:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA06971 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:03:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-111.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-111.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.111]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA24218 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:03:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CBF39E.4FAC@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 348 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Magnetic Monopole Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:03:11 -0700 When I tested the field, I found (using a compass) that there was no south field at all surrounding the monopole. Could a device like this be useful for anything? I was thinking maybe magnetic monorails? How does magnetism warp gravity? Anti-gravity? What are the charachteristics of a magnetic monopole? (device, not particle) Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 14:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1856" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "14:27:17" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "40" "starship-design: Magnetic Monopole" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA17969 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:27:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA17956; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:27:17 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707152127.OAA17956@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CBF39E.4FAC@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CBF39E.4FAC@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1855 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Magnetic Monopole Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:27:17 -0700 (PDT) kyle writes: > When I tested the field, I found (using a compass) that there was no > south field at all surrounding the monopole. Could a device like this be > useful for anything? I was thinking maybe magnetic monorails? One has to be careful interpreting the behavior of a compass. For example, a non-magnetized lump of iron would show similar behavior; depending on which end of the compass you brought closest to it first, that end would keep pointing at the lump for as long as you kept the compass nearby and didn't shake it too much, because the magnet of the compass needle is attracted to the iron lump. Your measurement is definitely not conclusive. If your object is a dipole (and I strongly suspect it is, you probably just aren't being careful enough about measuring the field) then it will show orientation in a magnetic field consistent with that; it will line up differently depending on the direction of an externally-applied magnetic field. Oh, and don't forget to throw it through a superconducting ring, just to be sure :-) > How does magnetism warp gravity? Anti-gravity? It doesn't. Mass will create a gravitational field proportional to the mass, but the electric charge or magnetic field of that mass has no effect on the gravitational field created (other than the field energy's contribution to the mass). > What are the charachteristics of a magnetic monopole? (device, not > particle) The dumb answer is that a magnetic monopole is not a dipole. A monopole is either all north or all south, analagous to how electric fields are either positive or negatively charged. However, nobody's ever observed a monopole nor has anyone constructed a device to form a monopole magnetic field. All known means of producing magnetism have to form dipole fields if they use either electric current or magnetic materials. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 14:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2559" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "14:28:01" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "50" "starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA18332 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:27:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA18261 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:27:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA23734; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:26:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA28571; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:28:01 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707152128.OAA28571@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2558 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but... Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:28:01 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > Steve wrote: > > >Maxwell's equations can be slightly modified to account for monopoles; > >changing a zero to a constant in the equation that describes magnetic > >flux would deal with the monopole case. > > I never really liked the Maxwell approach to magnetics. Einstein's approach > (relativistic velocity addition) seems to be more fundamental and gives more > insight. I would not know how to incorporate monopoles into the latter > theory, unless space is warped in strange ways (like anti-gravity). Electromagnetism isn't exactly my strong point. The English version of the relevant Maxwell equation is that magnetic flux, integrated over a complete surface (topologically equivalent to a sphere with no holes), is zero. A magnetic monopole, on the other hand, would have a nonzero flux. As electric monpoles already exist, the electric-field Maxwell equation basically says that electric field flux integrated over a surface is equal to the charge enclosed by the surface. > >Actually, it's fairly easy to detect a monopole. The detector I heard > >of is simply a loop of superconducting material. A monopole passing > >through the loop would induce a current flow that would remain in the > >loop after the passage of the monpole, unlike a dipole which after > >passing through the loop would leave no net current flow. > > Yes, that would work, except that it may be difficult to have 100% symmetry > doing it like this: Suppose you've a normal magnet, how do you know that you > have moved it an exact equal distance from "in front of" to "at the back of" > the superconductor? > To be able to do this you should be able to figure out where the "center of > magnetivity" of the magnet is. By the Maxwell approach, you don't need to worry about "center of magnetivity"; no matter where you place the surface you intregrate magnetic flux over, whether it's surrounding the magnet or not, you get zero for the total flux in the normal case and a nonzero flux if there's a magnetic monopole nearby. > To avoid this problem, you may turn around the monopole in the neighbourhood > of the superconductor. After a 360 degree turn, the current in the > superconductor before and after should be the same. > > (Of course if you have a big magnetic monopole, the crude method will give > results that speak for themselves) >From what I remember (and I'm not claiming any great authority on this) hypothetical monopoles are essentially point-like particles, with "magnetic charge". From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 15 14:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1323" "Tue" "15" "July" "1997" "15:58:02" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "33" "Re: starship-design: Magnetic Monopole" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA02844 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:58:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA02789 for ; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:58:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-111.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-90.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.90]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA18997; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:58:14 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CC0071.64F@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33CBF39E.4FAC@sunherald.infi.net> <199707152127.OAA17956@darkwing.uoregon.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1322 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: starship-design: Magnetic Monopole Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:58:02 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > > One has to be careful interpreting the behavior of a compass. For > example, a non-magnetized lump of iron would show similar behavior; > depending on which end of the compass you brought closest to it first, > that end would keep pointing at the lump for as long as you kept the > compass nearby and didn't shake it too much, because the magnet of the > compass needle is attracted to the iron lump. Your measurement is > definitely not conclusive. I pointed the south side of the compass at the monopole, and it changed direction. I tried testing it with another permanent magnet, which quickly began to vibrate, and tried to switch sides. (N/S) > If your object is a dipole (and I strongly suspect it is, you probably > just aren't being careful enough about measuring the field) then it will > show orientation in a magnetic field consistent with that; it will line > up differently depending on the direction of an externally-applied > magnetic field. Its a dipole, but with monopolar qualities. A south field is produced (and only south) on the inside of the device, and only north on the outside. I still think its useful though. > > Oh, and don't forget to throw it through a superconducting ring, just to > be sure :-) I don't have a superconductive ring. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 02:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1443" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "11:37:47" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "35" "starship-design: Re: Magnetic Monopole" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA22577 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 02:37:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA22566 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 02:37:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-016.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0woQWp-000FxaC; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 11:37:47 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1442 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Magnetic Monopole Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 11:37:47 +0200 (MET DST) Kyle, In response to a letter you wrote to Steve (and SD): >>One has to be careful interpreting the behavior of a compass. For >>example, a non-magnetized lump of iron would show similar behavior; >>depending on which end of the compass you brought closest to it first, >>that end would keep pointing at the lump for as long as you kept the >>compass nearby and didn't shake it too much, because the magnet of the >>compass needle is attracted to the iron lump. Your measurement is >>definitely not conclusive. > >I pointed the south side of the compass at the monopole, and it changed >direction. I tried testing it with another permanent magnet, which >quickly began to vibrate, and tried to switch sides. (N/S) Can you explain that again? There are some unclear parts in the lines above. Did the south-side of the compassneedle point towards the monopole all the time? Did you do this over the whole surface (so not just in one plane)? (Keep in mind that the magnetic field may not be symmetric.) >Its a dipole, but with monopolar qualities. A south field is produced >(and only south) on the inside of the device, and only north on the >outside. I still think its useful though. Being this convinced with such rough measurements is usually not likely to help you... Timothy P.S. As about "How does magnetism warp gravity? Anti-gravity?" and "What are the charachteristics of a magnetic monopole?", I agree with Steve. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 02:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2356" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "11:37:45" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "53" "starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA22631 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 02:37:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA22620 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 02:37:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-016.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0woQWn-000FvBC; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 11:37:45 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2355 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: I know this is off the subject but... Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 11:37:45 +0200 (MET DST) Steve, >Electromagnetism isn't exactly my strong point. The English version of >the relevant Maxwell equation is that magnetic flux, integrated over a >complete surface (topologically equivalent to a sphere with no holes), >is zero. A magnetic monopole, on the other hand, would have a nonzero >flux. As electric monpoles already exist, the electric-field Maxwell >equation basically says that electric field flux integrated over a >surface is equal to the charge enclosed by the surface. True, this surface flux integration is indeed the essential indicator. >By the Maxwell approach, you don't need to worry about "center of >magnetivity"; no matter where you place the surface you intregrate >magnetic flux over, whether it's surrounding the magnet or not, you get >zero for the total flux in the normal case and a nonzero flux if there's >a magnetic monopole nearby. I understood this, but with the superconducting loop, you won't be able to measure a closed surface unless you change the radius of the superconducting loop. (--> First make the radius 0, then enlarge it to move the monopole through it, then close the loop to zero radius again.) So your theory is right, but less practical to test with a more or less solid super conducting loop. I've to admit though that if you start at an "infinite" distance (100 meters) from the superconductor loop and end a similar distance, the surface of the loop will become infinitely small compared to the total surface. So unless you expect really small monopoles, you will likely not need closing the loop. >>To avoid this problem, you may turn around the monopole in the neighbourhood >>of the superconductor. After a 360 degree turn, the current in the >>superconductor before and after should be the same. Hmmm, having rethought this method, it is almost 100% certain to fail since it only integrates a small "orbit" from the surface. So, the method Steve suggested with the modification of closing the loop should make the proof indefinately. >>(Of course if you have a big magnetic monopole, the crude method will give >>results that speak for themselves) > >From what I remember (and I'm not claiming any great authority on this) >hypothetical monopoles are essentially point-like particles, with >"magnetic charge". Sorry, instead of "big" I should have written "strong". Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 12:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2012" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "16:04:22" "-0300" "Antonio C T Rocha" "arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br" nil "46" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA29329 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:30:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br ([200.252.253.1] (may be forged)) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA29305 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:29:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Metacor.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (dl1193-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.193]) by srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (8.8.5/SCA-6.6) with ESMTP id TAA17088 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:24:53 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Organization: is unrealistic X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Antonio C T Rocha Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2011 From: Antonio C T Rocha Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:04:22 -0300 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > Kyle wondered: > > >I read about the thought of life on a gas planet. I think its > possible, > >but wonder (I know this will sound dumb): what would they build > >spaceships out of? Its a logical question. > > They can use dead bodies to extract the materials from. > Sorry to be so crude, but your question probably should have been, > what are > these creatures build of? If you know the answer, than you most likely > know > the source for spaceship material. > > Timothy Hello again, Conditions under which microbial life has already been found on earth - boiling hot, very acidic, very high pressures in the bottom of mines, near volcano-shafts, near sulforous vents on the sea floor - possibly also exist _somewhere_ on Venus and/or the gas giants. If primitive life was indeed seeded from space, and is therefor similar in potential, it might be as probable somewhere on Venus' surface as it is on the ocean floor on top of a boiling sulfurous volcano-vent on Earth. Gas giants present growing pressures towards their centers, to the point where the "gas" possibly liquefies and then solidifies. Conditions at some "altitude" might resemble the above sulfurous vents or even the surface of Venus itself. Supposing that lifeforms higher than just microbes existed there, they might be, as Carl Sagan suggested, baloon-like in the gaseous regions, and predators there might tend to be bird-like. Similar logic might be applied to the liquid and solid (if any) regions of the gas giants. If I had to make a spaceship while living on a gas giant, I would try to spin very dense cocoons of polyamide/amine-like material (kevlar, teflon, nylon, etc.) that might be "mined" from the surrounding nitrogen hydrogen oxygen carbon compounds (that we know of - might be others). Hydrogen or carbohydrates and oxygen would be the fuels of choice. If I did have "force-field" or ZPE generators or space-time "bubblifiers", of course, it would tend to be easier :-) From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 12:31 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["978" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "12:31:06" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "20" "Re: starship-design: Magnetic Monopole" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA29631 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:31:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA29597 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:31:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA08720; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:29:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA04170; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:31:06 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707161931.MAA04170@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CC0071.64F@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CBF39E.4FAC@sunherald.infi.net> <199707152127.OAA17956@darkwing.uoregon.edu> <33CC0071.64F@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 977 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Magnetic Monopole Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:31:06 -0700 kyle writes: > > If your object is a dipole (and I strongly suspect it is, you probably > > just aren't being careful enough about measuring the field) then it will > > show orientation in a magnetic field consistent with that; it will line > > up differently depending on the direction of an externally-applied > > magnetic field. > > Its a dipole, but with monopolar qualities. A south field is produced > (and only south) on the inside of the device, and only north on the > outside. I still think its useful though. That's too easy not to have been tried before. I know there has to be some reason why you can't just build a ball of dipoles with all the south poles pointing in and north poles pointing out and have that be a monopole, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about electromagnetism to say why at the moment. You should probably get together with a good physics teacher and find out whether what you've built could really work like you think it does. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 14:25 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["302" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "05:26:44" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "11" "starship-design: I'm a new member" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA18674 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:25:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA18640 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:25:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id RLM23379; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:24:50 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970717.052645.12190.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-1,5-9 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 301 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: lunar@sunsite.unc.edu Subject: starship-design: I'm a new member Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 05:26:44 -0400 Hello everyone, I'm a mechanical engineer, and found your web site. Absolutely fascinating! Will someone please help me get up to speed on whats happening. I love the idea of instellar flight, and am glad to be part of a serious discussion. Thanks. Jim Clem, BSE jimaclem@juno.com From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 17:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["27249" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "19:22:14" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "524" "starship-design: FW: SSRT: Space Access Update no. 73 (FWD)" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA04081 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:35:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA04068 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:35:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p16.gnt.com (x2p16.gnt.com [204.49.68.221]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA21161 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:35:18 -0500 Received: by x2p16.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC921F.5A2755A0@x2p16.gnt.com>; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:35:01 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC921F.5A2755A0@x2p16.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 27248 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: FW: SSRT: Space Access Update no. 73 (FWD) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:22:14 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: Chris W. Johnson [SMTP:chrisj@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Monday, July 14, 1997 8:14 PM To: Single Stage Rocket Technology News Subject: SSRT: Space Access Update no. 73 (FWD) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 14:53:45 -0700 (MST) From: Donald Doughty To: delta-clipper@world.std.com Subject: Space Access Update #73 7/14/97 (fwd) Sender: delta-clipper-approval@world.std.com Reply-To: delta-clipper@world.std.com >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 16:56:59 -0400 (EDT) >From: hvanderbilt@BIX.com >Subject: Space Access Update #73 7/14/97 Space Access Update #73 7/14/97 Copyright 1997 by Space Access Society ________________________________________________________________________ Stories this issue: - Editorial: First X, *then* Y, or, The Effective Integration of New Technologies into Advanced Aerospace Vehicles - X-33 Emergency "Tiger Team" Review Results - Management Acknowledges Problems, Begins Fixes - SFF/NASA "Cheap Access" Symposium in DC July 21-22 - Mixed Results Last Week on NASA "Future X", DOD "Spaceplane" Funding * Alert: NASA "Future X" Funding Part of Critical House Floor Showdown Tuesday, Also In Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Markup Tuesday ________________________________________________________________________ First X, *then* Y or The Effective Integration of New Technologies into Advanced Aerospace Vehicles (Ref "First pillage, *then* burn..." Written for the program book of the July 21-22 SFF/NASA "Cheap Access" symposium.) X-vehicles are hot in the space business these days - fashionable and fundable. It should come as no surprise then that all sorts of people are tagging their pet projects "X" in hopes of jumping onto the funding bandwagon. But while federal funding for space X-vehicles is available, it's far from unlimited. We have a strong interest in making clear what is and isn't actually "X", what we will and will not support the government doing with the available funding. One pseudo-X example is the X-38 ACRV, a "Y" vehicle in X clothing, a routine operational mission-flying vehicle project disguised as an advanced experiment. A variation on this theme is "X" projects where operational mission requirements are mixed willy-nilly with experimental goals, as with the original X-34. Such confusion between experimental and operational goals led to the original X-34 project's demise, and causes ongoing problems for X-33. (Y-vehicles are prototypes of ships intended, with minor production refinements, to carry operational payloads and perform operational missions. Repeat after us: "Prototypes" are NOT X-vehicles.) OK, you say, so how would we define a genuine X-vehicle. We're glad you asked... New aerospace vehicle technologies can be taken only so far in computer simulations and wind tunnels and test stands. There comes a time when the only way to pin down the remaining uncertainties is flight test - the sims and ground tests are good and getting better, but there are always conditions the sim only approximated, interactions the ground-testers didn't anticipate. The wrong way to flight-test new technologies is to bring together a whole bunch of them directly into a project to build, say, a prototype airbreathing-to-orbit spaceplane (NASP) or (hypothetical example of course) an SSTO replacement for NASA's Space Shuttle. In theory this approach saves time and money - skip all the intermediate flight-test data-gathering and debugging, and go straight to a prototype as close as possible to the final operational vehicle. There's a problem with this approach: the relatively large remaining uncertainties in the partially tested new technologies force the designers to use large safety margins, because the resulting vehicle MUST work, reliably over many flights - it's costing billions, it has a high political profile, and it has payload-carrying missions it MUST fly. High risks for high payoffs are not allowed. The large margins translate to heavier subsystems. The heavier subsystems multiply more than add: heavier tanks require heavier support structures require more powerful engines require larger tanks require... More expensive materials and more exotic manufacturing techniques are dragged in to try to contain the weight increases. The vehicle size and cost balloon, the project bloats and stretches out, the final result is at best a marginally operable kluge. As we said, a hypothetical example only. The right way to flight-test new technologies is, well, to flight-test 'em. An X-vehicle is an ad hoc flight demonstrator, designed to find out as quickly and cheaply as possible what happens when one or more new technologies are pushed to their limits. X-vehicles can range in scope from a new rapidly-solidified-unobtainium TPS sample bolted onto a sounding rocket for a few millions, to a package of mostly existing plus a few new technologies bundled into an integrated flight test vehicle for a few hundreds of millions. Either way, X-vehicles have no missions but building experience and returning data, and no payloads but instruments and in some cases pilots. X-vehicles are essentially disposable - you don't waste resources on production-engineering, you don't include much systems redundancy, you build several copies and count on breaking one or two before the test program's over. After you've built and flown an X-vehicle, THEN you have the data and experience to design an operational prototype. Paradoxically, doing two design-build-fly cycles, X-vehicle then prototype, historically ends up quicker cheaper and more effective than trying to compress the process into one giant leap from the ground test labs to an operational vehicle. ________________________________________________________________________ X-33 "Tiger Team" Review Results Some results of last month's emergency "tiger team" review of the X-33 program are coming out (see Space News June 23 page 2 and AW&ST June 30 page 27). Apparently NASA and Lockheed-Martin are no longer pretending everything's fine with X-33. They're also beginning to take steps to deal with the problems they've identified, which gives us increased hope that X-33 might yet fly in some useful form. (Somewhere inside that $1.2 billion "subscale Shuttle replacement prototype" we sense a $600 million X-vehicle screaming to get out...) - Weight. The initial target for X-33's empty weight was 63,000 lbs, with a fully-fuelled gross liftoff weight (GLOW) of 273,000 lbs. Empty weight has crept up to 80,000 lbs, with prospect of further increases as the design evolves. 80,000 lbs would cause X-33 to fall well short of the specified Mach 15 top speed, and would make it marginal at best for reaching Malmstrom AFB (in Montana) from Edwards (in southern California) on the max speed test flights. Further increases and X-33 definitely wouldn't make Malmstrom. The tiger team (actually the Technical Readiness Review Team, TRRT, with go-anywhere authority and members from Lockheed-Martin, McDonnell- Douglas, and NASA's Dryden, Marshall, and Langley centers) has identified 10,000 pounds of potential weight reductions. Further review shows that at least 5,000 lbs of this can be accomplished with no reduction in the scope of the project - avoiding scope reductions is a significant political concern; we and others feel the contractor should deliver what they promised to win this bid. - Densified Propellants. At 75,000 lbs dry, X-33 could still end up short of range for the high-speed tests if (as seems likely between now and design-freeze this fall) weight creeps up again. One proposal to deal with this is the use of "densified" propellants, cooled down below the boiling point enough to be increased in density several percent - this would allow additional propellant in the (already fixed-size) tanks and provide some extra margin. (The former Rockwell included densified propellants in their X-33 bid and displayed some propellant-loading heat exchanger hardware at their RLV Expo in spring '96.) This would be an additional operational complication, but we've pretty much given up on X-33 proving much about austere ops anyway - this is an interesting technology, and we have no objection in principle to adding it to X-33. We are however very skeptical about doing it as an addition to the contract involving extra payments; it would be too easy to use as a backdoor way of paying for part of the likely contractor overruns. Better perhaps to do it as a NASA in-kind contribution to the program - either in-house or via a separate contractor. - Cost Overruns. Published estimates of likely X-33 cost overruns range from $5 million to $500 million, on a $1.2 billion total ($950m NASA, $250m contractor) project. We expect the actual figure will be in the middle of that range, $200m - $300m, when the dust finally settles. Lockheed-Martin management has been saying, meanwhile, that they expect to complete the project without asking for any extra money, that any overruns will be covered by planned reserves. We're told this is not just talk, that they've promised Dan Goldin face- to-face they won't ask for more money. This seeming contradiction can be explained two ways: Either they're dumb enough to think that lying about this, now, is a good idea (highly unlikely) or they've decided to eat the overruns, pay for 'em out of corporate cash. Unprecedented, if so. Lowballing to win a bid then making it up in the overruns is a time-honored tradition in the US aerospace industry. Administrator Goldin's recent more-restrictive rule is, cancel the project if overruns exceed 15%. That still leaves room for Lockheed- Martin to haggle for a good bit extra if project costs rise - but they don't seem to be haggling. Could the tiger-team review have turned up a smoking gun on lowballing? Could NASA have told LockMart their overrun margin on this one is 0%, not 15%? Could we be reading far too much into sparse data? All of these are possible. Time will tell. - Aerodynamics. The chosen X-33 lifting-body configuration turns out to have control problems at various points during its flight profile, in pitch during the transition from supersonic to subsonic during descent, and laterally at landing. Canards, small nose-mounted control surfaces, are one possibility to cure the transonic instabilities. They'd have to be retractable though, with additional weight, cost and reliability impact, or they'd burn off during reentry as well as exacerbate control problems at landing. Another possibility is to increase the vertical stabilizer size for better lateral stibility at landing, and cant them inwards as with the F-18 for better transonic stability. The tip fins on the lifting body, meanwhile, have grown large enough that they might as well be (and are being called) wings. All of this adds weight, drag, and expense both manufacturing and operating. Aside from the specifics of the weight reductions identified (more on those when we know more) the biggest change being made is in program organization: From being spread all over the map, project management is being concentrated again in Palmdale at the actual Skunkworks. We-told- you-so department: In SAU #62, April 1996, we said: "Lockheed- Martin(s)... ..last major public move was the Lockheed-Martin merger, which we understand caused pieces of their X-33 bid to be spread all over the map rather than kept concentrated at the old Lockheed Advanced Development shop, better known as the 'Skunk Works'. Handing out pieces of the project.. ...seems likely to be a minus in terms of maintaining the proven closely-integrated Skunk Works structure." >From Aviation Week & Space Technology of 30 June 1997, page 27, "All told there are 29 organizations in 16 states working on X-33/RLV". From Space News of June 23rd, page 2, "As part of its effort to resolve the engineering problems, Lockheed Martin has decided to centralize management of the program at the company's Skunk Works facility in Palmdale California." Ken Mattingly in suburban DC is out and Jerry Rising in Palmdale is in as project boss, the systems integration engineering team is being reinforced 50% and moved from Denver to Palmdale... These are steps in the right direction at least. One last thought for now: Some are already saying that X-33's weight growth problems "prove" SSTO is impractical. To which we say, nonsense! We've been saying all along that practical SSTO will be a major engineering challenge and that the best way to do it is with a small, highly skilled, tightly integrated engineering team of the sort the old Skunk Works (among others) was known for. All X-33's early problems prove is what we've been saying all along: Business-as-usual mass-assault contractor-in-every-district engineering - however politically expedient - isn't good enough. This plug-in-the- disposable-personnel style of project management is *precisely* what the TRRT "tiger team" found was the major cause of X-33's weight growth. A skilled highly integrated development team is a whole greater than the sum of its parts. If the US government aerospace complex (re)learns that one lesson and no other from X-33, the project will have paid for itself many times over. ________________________________________________________________________ SFF/NASA "Cheap Access" Symposium in DC July 21-22 Space Frontier Foundation is running a NASA sponsored "Cheap Access" symposium at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill (400 New Jersey Ave NW in Washington DC, $79/night summer rate available) Monday July 21st and Tuesday July 22nd. Admission is free, NASA's paying the expenses. This looks like being heavily weighted towards major aerospace and DC insiders; cheap access activists who can attend will leaven the mix. We'll be on a Tuesday afternoon panel on X-vehicles. Info and online registration at http://www.space-frontier.org/CATS. ________________________________________________________________________ Mixed Results Last Week on NASA "Future X", DOD "Spaceplane" Funding First, our thanks to everyone who called or faxed the Congress in response to our alert last week. We're going to ask you to do it again this week, and this time get a friend or two to also. More on that in the next section. The results last week were mixed. On the DOD "military spaceplane" (MSP) R&D funding side, the best info we have is that the House Appropriations DOD Subcommittee matched the House DOD Authorizations amount of $15 million, while the Senate DOD Appropriations Subcommittee zeroed MSP despite $10 million in the Senate DOD Authorization. We flat-out fell behind the curve on the Senate Defense Appropriation; the bill is on the Senate floor and near a final vote as we write. We don't know what's in it for MSP, but unless something behind-the-scenes worked out, we suspect still zero. Our next chance to affect the issue is in the House-Senate conference this fall. Regarding NASA "Future X" funding, things are getting complicated. (background: "Future X" is NASA's proposed program to follow up X-33 with an ongoing series of smaller space launch X-projects, less ambitious (and far less expensive) individually but with potential for far more total impact in the long run. The Future X people seem to have learned from X-33 that you can go for far higher gains if you divide your risk among a bunch of smaller projects rather than gamble everything on a single large one. We agree, and we're supporting efforts to get NASA Future X funded next year.) (background: Congressional "Authorizations" bills are roughly equivalent to an authorized shopping list. "Appropriations" bills are where the checks are actually written. In theory both are necessary before any Federal money can be spent.) Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's Space Subcommittee of the House Science Committee put $300 million for an X-33 followon (this was before NASA's "Future X" plans had gone public) in the House NASA Authorization bill, and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, head of the full House Science Committee, backed him up - Rohrabacher's NASA Authorization then passed the full House by a large margin. (background: Congressional appropriators in recent years have routinely ignored the NASA authorizers. Often Congress didn't even bother to pass a final NASA Authorization bill. This is changing under the new chief NASA authorizer, Space Subcommittee Chairman Rohrabacher. There are signs that the Senate NASA Authorizers under Senator John McCain may also take a more active interest this year. A major turf battle with the Appropriators is brewing.) Meanwhile, Rep. Jerry Lewis's HUD/VA/IA (NASA) Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee both ignored the Future X authorization and provided NASA a pair of escape routes past the $2.1 billion annual spending cap on the Space Station program - $100 million in extra cash to cover Russian overruns, plus $150 million in "raiding authority", permission for NASA to transfer up to $150 million from other NASA projects to Station. (background: NASA Station was near defunding a couple years back; the $2.1 billion spending cap was a major element of the deal that kept it going. It's all over Washington now though that Station has been sweeping overruns under the rug ever since, and that there's no way to hide them any more - the total overrun by next year is expected to be near a half billion dollars. Shuttle ate everyone else's lunch within NASA for most of a decade, and people remember. Making sure Station won't repeat this history was key to the deal that kept it alive.) The full Appropriations Committee backed Rep. Lewis's NASA Appropriation last week - Future X got nothing, and meanwhile Station was both being given extra money over the agreed limit, and also being given permission to raid other NASA projects to pay for Station overruns. We're very unhappy about zero for Future X, and a whole lot of people are unhappy about busting the $2.1 billion Station spending cap, most especially about the $150 million internal raiding authority. The 800 pound gorrilla is starting to eye everyone else's lunch again... At the very least, this shouldn't happen without hearings to establish why. So now the HUD/VA/Independent Agencies Appropriation (NASA is by far the largest of the "Independent Agencies" covered) goes to the full House for floor debate, amendments, and final passage, likely starting the evening of Tuesday the 15th, tomorrow. And there will be amendments offered by Rep. Rohrabacher and others to fix the Future X and Station problems, and the result will be a test of strength between the House NASA appropriators and authorizers. The main amendment sponsors will be Representative Dana Rohrabacher and Representative Tim Roemer - Roemer is a long-time critic of Space Station. We don't know the exact structure of the amendments to be offered (there will be more than one) but our current information is as follows, subject to last-second changes: -- The $150 million in "raiding permission" will be dealt with procedurally rather than via amendment. -- One "Rohrabacher-Roemer" amendment will transfer $100 million from NASA's "Human Spaceflight" account to the account that covers reusable launch vehicle work, the intent being to cancel the $100 million new money for Russian Station overruns and provide $100 million startup funding for NASA Future X. -- A second Rohrabacher-Roemer amendment will limit overall Station construction and operations spending next year to the previously agreed $2.1 billion cap, preventing raids on Shuttle funding or on Station science funding to pay for Station construction cost overruns. We're supporting both Rohrabacher-Roemer amendments, and asking you to do the same. The reason for supporting the reusable launch/Future X funding amendment is obvious. The reasons for supporting the Station funding limits amendment are a bit less obvious. In part, it's a matter of supporting people who are supporting us, of an ad hoc coalition. Then too, the rest of NASA has had to live with tight fiscal discipline for years now. Why should the Station project be rewarded for overruns by being given permission to raid projects that have succeeded within their new limits? Especially when some of the projects at risk might eventually be cheap access related ones, of far more long-term benefit to the nation than the current expensive-access constrained Station project. ________________________________________________________________________ * Alert: NASA "Future X" Funding in Critical House Floor Showdown Tuesday Night July 15th - Wednesday If Schedule Slips We want all of you to call, fax, or telegraph your Representative and ask them to support the Rohrabacher-Roemer amendments to the HUD/VA Appropriations bill. Emphasize your support for $100 million for NASA "Future X" reusable launch research, and if you're comfortable with it also mention your opposition to letting Station break its agreed-on spending cap. You can look up your Representative's local district office in the Federal government section of the "blue pages" of your local phone book. If you're not sure which of several Representatives listed is yours, your local library information desk can likely help you. We recommend that you contact your Representative's Washington office directly - but if you do call or fax the local office, try to do so well before close of business Tuesday, so they can let their Washington counterparts know that they've heard from constituents on the matter before the floor votes happen. Better you should ask the local office for your Representative's Washington office phone (or fax) number, or you can call the US Capitol switchboard at 1 202 224-3121 and get switched through (maybe - they can get pretty overloaded), or you can use the Representative locator available at http://www.house.gov/writerep/ to find out who your representative is and get their DC office phone and fax numbers. If you phone, ask for the LA (Legislative Assistant) who deals with NASA Appropriations, then when you get either them or their voicemail, identify yourself briefly as a constituent ("Hi, my name is Bill Smith, and I'm from East Peoria") then tell them what you want ("I'm calling to ask Representative Jones to support the Rohrabacher-Roemer amendments to the NASA Appropriation bill") then tell them briefly why (EG, "I think funding for Future X at NASA is a vital investment in our country's future technological competitiveness") then, if they don't have any questions, thank them and ring off. If you write or fax, tell them the same basic things, but spend a few more words on why you think it's a good idea. Keep it well under a page though. And of course, always keep it clear and keep it polite. The staffer reading it is likely overworked already, and if you annoy them the last thing they're going to do is go to bat for your pet program. * Alert: Senate Appropriations VA/HUD/IA Subcommittee Marks Up NASA Appropriation bill Tuesday July 15th 4 pm If any of the following Senators is from your state, we ask that you contact them and ask them to support $300 million for NASA "Future X" in the Senate VA/HUD Appropriations bill. Our latest info is that the Subcommittee will begin marking up at 4 pm tomorrow, Tuesday the 15th. voice fax Bond, Christopher (R MO, Chair) (202) 224-5042 224-0139 Burns, Conrad (R MT) 224-2644 224-8594 Stevens, Ted (R AK) 224-3004 224-2354 Shelby, Richard (R AL) 224-5744 224-3416 Campbell, Ben Nighthorse (R CO) 224-5852 224-1933 Craig, Larry (R ID) 224-2752 224-2573 Mikulski, Barbara (D MD) 224-4654 224-2626 Leahy, Patrick (D VT) 224-4242 224-3595 Lautenberg, Frank (D NJ) 224-4744 224-9707 Harkin, Tom (D IA) 224-3254 224-9369 Boxer, Barbara (D CA) 224-3553 Byrd, Robert (D WV) 224-3954 228-0002 That's all for now. Go get 'em! -----------------------(SAS Policy Boilerplate)------------------------ Space Access Update is Space Access Society's when-there's-news publication. Space Access Society's goal is to promote affordable access to space for all, period. We believe in concentrating our resources at whatever point looks like yielding maximum progress toward this goal. Right now, we think this means working our tails off trying to get the government to build and fly multiple quick-and-dirty high-speed reusable "X-rocket" demonstrators in the next three years, in order to quickly build up both experience with and confidence in reusable Single-Stage To Orbit (SSTO) technology. The idea is to reduce SSTO technical uncertainty (and thus development risk and cost) while at the same time increasing investor confidence, to the point where SSTO will make sense as a private commercial investment. We're not far from that point. With luck and hard work, we should see fully-reusable rocket testbeds flying into space before the end of this decade, with practical radically cheaper orbital transports following soon after. Space Access Society won't accept donations from government launch developers or contractors - it would limit our freedom to do what's needed. We survive on member dues and contributions, plus what we make selling tapes and running our annual conference. Join us, and help us make it happen. Henry Vanderbilt, Executive Director, Space Access Society To join Space Access Society or buy the SSTO/DC-X V 3.1 video we have for sale (Two hours, includes all twelve DC-X/XA flights, X-33 bidder animations, X-33, DC-X and SSTO backgrounders, aerospike engine test- stand footage, plus White Sands Missile Range DC-X ops site footage) mail a check to: SAS, 4855 E Warner Rd #24-150, Phoenix AZ 85044. SAS membership with direct email of Space Access Updates is $30 US per year; the SSTO V 3.0 video is $25, $5 off for SAS members, $8 extra for shipping outside North America, US standard VHS NTSC only. __________________________________________________________________________ Space Access Society "Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere 4855 E Warner Rd #24-150 in the Solar System." Phoenix AZ 85044 - Robert A. Heinlein 602 431-9283 voice/fax www.space-access.org "You can't get there from here." space.access@space-access.org - Anonymous - Permission granted to redistribute the full and unaltered text of this - - piece, including the copyright and this notice. All other rights - - reserved. In other words, crossposting, emailing, or printing this - - whole and passing it on to interested parties is strongly encouraged. - From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 17:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["7387" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "19:32:09" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "212" "starship-design: FW: SSRT: SSRT related vote expected Tuesday (FWD)" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA04094 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:35:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA04085 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:35:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p16.gnt.com (x2p16.gnt.com [204.49.68.221]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA21199 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:35:31 -0500 Received: by x2p16.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC921F.69574620@x2p16.gnt.com>; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:35:26 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC921F.69574620@x2p16.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 7386 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: FW: SSRT: SSRT related vote expected Tuesday (FWD) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:32:09 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: Chris W. Johnson [SMTP:chrisj@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 1997 4:32 PM To: Single Stage Rocket Technology News Subject: SSRT: SSRT related vote expected Tuesday (FWD) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:53:33 -0700 (MST) From: Donald Doughty To: delta-clipper@world.std.com Subject: ALERT: Please Call Congress on Tuesday (fwd) Sender: delta-clipper-approval@world.std.com Reply-To: delta-clipper@world.std.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:41:44 -0400 (EDT) >From: ProSpace97@aol.com >Subject: ALERT: Please Call Congress on Tuesday *************************************************** * ProSpace Legislative ACTION Alert * * Alert No. 97-11, 7/11/97 * *************************************************** * BIG Congressional space vote expected Tuesday * * * * More details on Rohrabacher Amendments * * in support of "Citizens' Space Agenda" * *************************************************** * ACTIONS REQUESTED: * * Call your Member of Congress! * * Distribute to ALL Lists -- Post to ALL Sites * *************************************************** **************************************** * To be ADDED to this List, or * * to be REMOVED from this List * * send a request to ProSpace97@aol.com * **************************************** ************************************************** * TABLE OF CONTENTS * * * * A) BREAKING NEWS: * * - Rep. Tim Roemer promises he will not * * attack the Space Station * * - Vote expected Tuesday Night * * - Space Station research and Space Shuttle * * to be protected * * * * B) ACTIONS REQUESTED: * * 1) Call Your Member of Congress * * 2) Get involved as a "Citizen Leader" * * * ************************************************** * World Wide Web: www.prospace.org * ************************************************** **************** A) BREAKING NEWS **************** <<<< Rep. Tim Roemer promises not to attack Station >>>> In a continuing sea change in national space policy, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics, has convinced Rep. Tim Roemer (D-IN) to forego his annual attempt to kill the Space Station on the floor of the House of Representatives. Signaling a change of direction, Congressman Roemer has decided to join Rohrabacher's campaign to support "Cheap Access to Space" by amending the VA/HUD bill on the floor of the House of Representatives. <<<< Vote on Floor expected Tuesday Night >>>> The VA/HUD bill is expected to come to the floor of the House on late Tuesday. At that time, Chairman Rohrabacher will propose amendments to the "FY98 VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriations" bill which contains NASA's funding. These amendments will be voted upon by the entire House of Representatives. The VA/HUD bill, as reported out of the Appropriations Committee, is inconsistent with the policies and funding priorities established by the "Civilian Space Authorization Act of 1998 and 1999" (H.R. 1275). Chairman Rohrabacher's amendments are designed to uphold the policies priorities of H.R. 1275. The most important Rohrabacher amendments to the supporters of "Cheap Access to Space" will be an increase in funding for Reusable Launch Vehicle research and development. <<<< Update on Rohrabacher Amendments >>>> In our last legislative alert (97-10), we reported that Rohrabacher would propose amendments to: a) Cut the unrequested $100 million increase for "Russian Program Assurance" for the Space Station; b) Use that $100 million to increase funding for reusable launch vehicle (RLV) research, initiating a follow-on experimental RLV project (Future-X); c) Delete the unorthodox "transfer authority" to take $150 million from NASA's Science, Aeronautics and Technology and/or Mission Support; and d) Set aside $50 million within Mission to Planet Earth to purchase Earth Science data. Our sources now report that Rep. Rohrabacher will also offer amendments to: e) Protect the funding for science research on the Space Station. (Space Station research is now the primary purpose of having the Space Station. This amendment will ensure the scientific community is ready to conduct breakthrough research after construction of the Station is complete.) f) Protect funding for the Space Shuttle (This amendment will protect the Space Shuttle account and support the safety of Shuttle astronauts.) ********************** B) Requests for Action ********************** <<<< Calling your Member - What to Do >>>> 1) Get their Phone Number a) If you know your zip code, but not the name of your Member of Congress, go to: "http://www.vote-smart.org/" b) Congressional Operator -- 202-224-3121. You will need the name of your Member to get their number. 2) Make the Call a) Be polite. b) Tell them who you are; give your home address. c) Ask to speak to the staffer who handles NASA; 3) Your Request - What to Ask (short and sweet): a) Please support a "Citizens' Space Agenda" to open the space frontier to ALL Americans, and vote for the amendment(s) that Rohrabacher will propose on the House floor for the "VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriations" bill; and b) Please Co-Sponsor the amendment(s), and/or speak in favor of the amendment(s) on the floor during the debate. 4) Be Polite & Thank them for their help. 5) An Opportunity to Lead - Ask your Friends to call too! Forward this email alert to your prospace friends and colleagues, and ask them to call. If you are part of a space group or organization, get them actively involved (officially or un-officially) as soon as possible. 6) Feedback -- Please Send it in! If you get any information on the position or intention of your Member of Congress during the call, whether good or bad, please send it to "ProSpace97@aol.com". Knowing the thoughts of your Member of Congress could be critical to not only this fight, but also to future campaigns. ***** For some time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- REAL LIFE" But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first. Some unfinished business. Time still to be served. A debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. - Alfred D'Souza *********************************** "Opening the Space Frontier for ALL People, and as soon as possible" E-mail: ProSpace97@aol.com Web: www.prospace.org *********************************** From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 19:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2285" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "20:19:39" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "50" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA00432 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:20:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA00418 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:20:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.85]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA13420; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 22:19:55 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2284 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: Antonio C T Rocha CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:19:39 -0700 Antonio C T Rocha wrote: > > Timothy van der Linden wrote: > Hello again, > Conditions under which microbial life has already been found on earth > - boiling hot, very acidic, very high pressures in the bottom of mines, > near volcano-shafts, near sulforous vents on the sea floor - possibly > also exist _somewhere_ on Venus and/or the gas giants. If primitive life > was indeed seeded from space, and is therefor similar in potential, it > might be as probable somewhere on Venus' surface as it is on the ocean > floor on top of a boiling sulfurous volcano-vent on Earth. > Gas giants present growing pressures towards their centers, to the > point where the "gas" possibly liquefies and then solidifies. Conditions > at some "altitude" might resemble the above sulfurous vents or even the > surface of Venus itself. > Supposing that lifeforms higher than just microbes existed there, > they might be, as Carl Sagan suggested, baloon-like in the gaseous > regions, and predators there might tend to be bird-like. Similar logic > might be applied to the liquid and solid (if any) regions of the gas > giants. > If I had to make a spaceship while living on a gas giant, I would > try to spin very dense cocoons of polyamide/amine-like material (kevlar, > teflon, nylon, etc.) that might be "mined" from the surrounding nitrogen > hydrogen oxygen carbon compounds (that we know of - might be others). A very good idea. Its light, cheap to make, and durable. > Hydrogen or carbohydrates and oxygen would be the fuels of choice. But where do you get the oxygen? Maybe electrolyze water? There couldn't be much free oxygen in a gas giant's atmosphere, since it would react quickly to the hydrogen, making water. > If I did have "force-field" or ZPE generators or space-time "bubblifiers", of > course, it would tend to be easier :-) Just a note: ZPE generators are in the expirimental stage, and are showing sucess. As far as the mention in earlier discussions of ZPE generators depleteing the STC, I think it falls "back-in-its-slot" after use, with no degradation/or quick regeneration. What do you mean by forcefields? Gravity/AntiGravity generators? (possible) What is a "SpaceTime Bublifier"? An Alcubierre type FTL drive? (again, possible) Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 20:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["656" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "20:28:40" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "15" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA16290 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:28:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA16278 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:28:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts12-line5.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.137]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA06912 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:27:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA05269; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:28:40 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707170328.UAA05269@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 655 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:28:40 -0700 kyle writes: > Just a note: > ZPE generators are in the expirimental stage, and are showing sucess. As > far as the mention in earlier discussions of ZPE generators depleteing > the STC, I think it falls "back-in-its-slot" after use, with no > degradation/or quick regeneration. If people are admitting this in public, then please provide references. If you are usefully extracting energy from the vacuum, then it can't just fall "back in its slot" after use; the energy has to permanently go somewhere else for it to be useful. If the zero-point energy really gets completely replenished, then you aren't getting useful energy out of the vacuum. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 20:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1214" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "21:36:04" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "35" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA17658 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:36:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA17641 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:36:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-96.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.96]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA08497; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:36:17 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CDA134.51BE@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170328.UAA05269@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1213 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:36:04 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > kyle writes: > > Just a note: > > ZPE generators are in the expirimental stage, and are showing sucess. As > > far as the mention in earlier discussions of ZPE generators depleteing > > the STC, I think it falls "back-in-its-slot" after use, with no > > degradation/or quick regeneration. > > If people are admitting this in public, then please provide references. > > If you are usefully extracting energy from the vacuum, then it can't > just fall "back in its slot" after use; the energy has to permanently go > somewhere else for it to be useful. If the zero-point energy really > gets completely replenished, then you aren't getting useful energy out > of the vacuum. Think of it as a quantum version of the water cycle. 1: energy extracted 2: energy used 3: energy useless, dissipates as waste 4: energy recondenses into vacuum 5: energy replenished 6: energy extracted... Since ZPE has been performed at the same frequency, power, place, etc. over and over, apparently the energy is never depleted. This is simply something we have yet to comprehend. Unlike FTL, this has been done. (over, and over...) Remember the law of conservation of energy! Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 20:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2328" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "20:47:36" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "52" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA20653 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:47:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA20644 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:47:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts12-line5.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.137]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA09202; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:46:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA05328; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:47:36 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707170347.UAA05328@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CDA134.51BE@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170328.UAA05269@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDA134.51BE@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2327 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:47:36 -0700 kyle writes: > Steve VanDevender wrote: > > kyle writes: > > > Just a note: > > > ZPE generators are in the expirimental stage, and are showing sucess. As > > > far as the mention in earlier discussions of ZPE generators depleteing > > > the STC, I think it falls "back-in-its-slot" after use, with no > > > degradation/or quick regeneration. > > > > If people are admitting this in public, then please provide references. > > > > If you are usefully extracting energy from the vacuum, then it can't > > just fall "back in its slot" after use; the energy has to permanently go > > somewhere else for it to be useful. If the zero-point energy really > > gets completely replenished, then you aren't getting useful energy out > > of the vacuum. > > Think of it as a quantum version of the water cycle. > > 1: energy extracted > 2: energy used > 3: energy useless, dissipates as waste > 4: energy recondenses into vacuum > 5: energy replenished > 6: energy extracted... > > Since ZPE has been performed at the same frequency, power, place, etc. > over and over, apparently the energy is never depleted. This is simply > something we have yet to comprehend. Unlike FTL, this has been done. > (over, and over...) > > Remember the law of conservation of energy! Yes, but it argues against you, not for you. The problem for your argument is that the water cycle depends on an external energy source, the Sun, to work. When a hydroelectric generator extracts energy from a river, it's extracting energy that was put there by the Sun evaporating water, which dispersed into the atmosphere, precipitated on land, and settled back toward the ocean. The hydroelectric generator just slows down the settling slightly and gets a fraction of the energy put in by the Sun as a result. Conservation of energy implies that if energy is removed from the vacuum, it is _removed_. If you put it all back then there's nothing left over for you to work with. If you extract energy and turn it into motion or photons or mass, then you can't have put it all back. ZPE, in a very real sense, gets something from nothing. Matter and energy don't react to produce vacuum -- the reactions always produce photons or particles -- so the energy extracted, if it is in any useful form, can never be put back. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 20:55 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1166" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "21:55:08" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "25" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA22736 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:55:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA22721 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:55:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-96.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.96]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA25179; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:55:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CDA5AB.5D15@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170328.UAA05269@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDA134.51BE@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170347.UAA05328@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1165 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: Steve VanDevender CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:55:08 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > Yes, but it argues against you, not for you. > > The problem for your argument is that the water cycle depends on an > external energy source, the Sun, to work. When a hydroelectric > generator extracts energy from a river, it's extracting energy that was > put there by the Sun evaporating water, which dispersed into the > atmosphere, precipitated on land, and settled back toward the ocean. > The hydroelectric generator just slows down the settling slightly and > gets a fraction of the energy put in by the Sun as a result. > > Conservation of energy implies that if energy is removed from the > vacuum, it is _removed_. If you put it all back then there's nothing > left over for you to work with. If you extract energy and turn it into > motion or photons or mass, then you can't have put it all back. ZPE, in > a very real sense, gets something from nothing. Matter and energy don't > react to produce vacuum -- the reactions always produce photons or > particles -- so the energy extracted, if it is in any useful form, can > never be put back. Why doesn't ZPE deplete? Your guess is as good as mine. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 21:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["608" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "21:07:02" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "12" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA25612 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:07:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA25592 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:06:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts12-line5.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.137]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA11434; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:05:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA05397; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:07:02 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707170407.VAA05397@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CDA5AB.5D15@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170328.UAA05269@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDA134.51BE@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170347.UAA05328@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDA5AB.5D15@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 607 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:07:02 -0700 kyle writes: > Why doesn't ZPE deplete? Your guess is as good as mine. Who says it doesn't? I've never seen even the physicists who propose extracting energy from it claim that zero-point energy won't be depleted by extraction. At best, given the rather impressive energy densities quoted for it (i.e. billions of kilograms of mass equivalent per cubic centimeter of space) it would be sort of hard to notice, but if anything conservation laws are more sacred than relativity and quantum mechanics in physics. "You can't get something for nothing" is one of the most fundamental principles of physics. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 21:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1603" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "22:22:15" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "38" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA29945 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:22:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA29935 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:22:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-84.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.84]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA24512; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 00:22:28 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CDAC06.23A9@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170328.UAA05269@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDA134.51BE@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170347.UAA05328@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDA5AB.5D15@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170407.VAA05397@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1602 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: Steve VanDevender CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 22:22:15 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > kyle writes: > > Why doesn't ZPE deplete? Your guess is as good as mine. > > Who says it doesn't? I've never seen even the physicists who propose > extracting energy from it claim that zero-point energy won't be depleted > by extraction. I don't think it does since there have been no witnessed disasters accomanying ZPE. I think that if you use ZPE, somewhere, ZPE is replenished. After all, why doesn't gravity deplete? > At best, given the rather impressive energy densities > quoted for it (i.e. billions of kilograms of mass equivalent per cubic > centimeter of space) it would be sort of hard to notice, but if anything > conservation laws are more sacred than relativity and quantum mechanics > in physics. "You can't get something for nothing" is one of the most > fundamental principles of physics. I don't think you can get something for nothing either. But if the energy is there to begin with, technically, its not something for nothing. Maybe ZPE has something to do with gravity? After you had used up ZPE, assuming it is used up, which I doubt, you could recycle and reuse the energy extracted, right? I also think that when ZPE is tapped and depleted, it creates a disturbance in spacetime, which MUST be filled, or the results could be catastrophic. Perhaps the defecit neutrinos would fill such a gap. Other Questions: (perhaps unanswerable) Where are the deficit neutrinos? What are they? What is gravity? I know the knee-jerk response is: its produced by mass. But what IS it? Why does light accelerate in a casimir cavity? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 16 21:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2912" "Wed" "16" "July" "1997" "21:44:31" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "60" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA04969 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:44:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA04959 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:44:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts12-line5.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.137]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA15973; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:43:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA05506; Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:44:31 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707170444.VAA05506@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CDAC06.23A9@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CD1B34.B00A555@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> <33CD8F4A.4B0A@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170328.UAA05269@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDA134.51BE@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170347.UAA05328@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDA5AB.5D15@sunherald.infi.net> <199707170407.VAA05397@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33CDAC06.23A9@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2911 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:44:31 -0700 kyle writes: > Steve VanDevender wrote: > > kyle writes: > > > Why doesn't ZPE deplete? Your guess is as good as mine. > > Who says it doesn't? I've never seen even the physicists who propose > > extracting energy from it claim that zero-point energy won't be depleted > > by extraction. > I don't think it does since there have been no witnessed disasters > accomanying ZPE. I think that if you use ZPE, somewhere, ZPE is > replenished. After all, why doesn't gravity deplete? Kyle, I would hope after all this time you'd start learning how to build logically convincing arguments. It may be that you can't extract zero-point energy, or that phenomena we're seeing that don't have other explanations could be zero-point energy extraction disasters, or that extracting zero-point energy changes the vacuum. Without any evidence, it's hard to say which, although I tend towards the last alternative. If zero-point energy is extractable, and it doesn't produce disastrous effects, then the most likely explanation is that it's like draining from a very deep reservoir. There's a certain finite amount of energy tied up in the vacuum, and extracting it is simply converting it to mass/energy. Unrestricted extraction of zero-point energy could result in both changes to the vacuum on a large scale and the increase of the mass density of the universe, possibly even with dangerous effects if done on a large scale. Why doesn't gravity deplete? Well, why don't electric fields deplete either? Because they're conservative potential fields (conservative meaning that they observe conservation laws, not that they're philosophically stodgy). That means that moving through a closed loop in such a field produces no net change in energy. As it turns out, gravitational potential energy from gravitationally bound objects does actually leak away over time in gravity waves, albeit extremely slowly. But this is actually just conversion of the potential energy in the separation of the masses into propagating spacetime disturbances; once (over a truly astronomical time scale) the masses come together and coalesce, they still exhibit the gravitational field resulting from their combined masses. If you're dubious, look up the astrophysical observations of some massive closely-coupled binary systems that show a gradual decrease in period resulting from the gravitational radiation. > Where are the deficit neutrinos? What are they? I've never heard of them. As with the zero-point experiments, where are your references? > What is gravity? I know the knee-jerk response is: its produced by mass. > But what IS it? Curvature (change of the geometric properties) of spacetime. See Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler's _Gravitation_. > Why does light accelerate in a casimir cavity? Which experiment showed this? So far I've only heard of the Casimir effect as a theoretical possibility. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 06:21 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["125" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "21:22:37" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" "<19970717.212238.12286.0.jimaclem@juno.com>" "8" "starship-design: ZPE generators" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA08414 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 06:21:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA08404 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 06:21:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JnD07187; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:20:38 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970717.212238.12286.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-1,3-6 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 124 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: ZPE generators Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:22:37 -0400 Kyle, What is a ZPE generator. I'm just a poor engineer and have never heard of such a thing. Thanks, jimaclem@juno.com From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 06:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["403" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "21:30:53" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "12" "starship-design: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA10036 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 06:29:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA10018 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 06:29:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JqU07187; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:28:57 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970717.213053.12286.2.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-3,8-10 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 402 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: magnetic monopoles Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:30:53 -0400 Steve and Kyle, I noticed your discussion of monopoles. I'm not yet certain, but a collection of dipoles placed with the south poles inside the sphere and the north poles placed outside is just that, a collection of dipoles. A monopole should have only a single pole, regardless of where you place your sensors. A plot of the magnetic lines of force might help demonstrate this. jimaclem@juno.com From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 07:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["871" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "22:30:48" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "26" "starship-design: What is gravity?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA20674 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 07:32:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA20664 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 07:32:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id KIC07187; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:29:09 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970717.223049.14478.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-1,3-5,7,12-13,15-16,19-24 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 870 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: What is gravity? Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:30:48 -0400 Kyle wrote, Well, for my two cents worth, I don't know what it IS, but I think I know how to model it. I space-time is treated as if it were a compressible fluid, then the effects (at least some of them) of gravity are recreated, i.e., in the presence of a mass, space-time compresses, and a ray of light entering this region is bent, as Einstein predicted. Now, I'm NOT saying that space-time IS a compressible fluid, just that it seems to act like one. I'm still working on the real numbers for this hypothesis, and hope to have them posted here soon. P.S. I'll go out on a limb here. If this hypothesis is correct, we may be able to devise a way to manipulate space-time, maybe like the Alcubierre concept. Any thoughts? Let me know. Jim Clem jimaclem@juno.com From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 09:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["764" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "09:42:28" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "19" "starship-design: ZPE generators" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA03713 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:42:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA03676; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:42:28 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707171642.JAA03676@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <19970717.212238.12286.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <19970717.212238.12286.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p6 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 763 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: ZPE generators Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:42:28 -0700 (PDT) jimaclem@juno.com writes: > Kyle, > > What is a ZPE generator. I'm just a poor engineer and have never > heard of such a thing. > > Thanks, > jimaclem@juno.com There are some theories being floated around the physics community about vacuum not being really completely empty, but a sea of sub-particle energy fluctuations calculated to have a rather surprisingly high energy density. This energy is supposedly what virtual particle formation draws from. Kyle is subscribing to an even more radical belief that if this zero-point energy exists, it's possible to extract energy from it permanently, which I'm rather dubious about (as you might guess from my responses). I'd rather work with plausibly exotic energy-generation methods like antimatter. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 11:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2062" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "12:12:48" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "47" "Re: starship-design: ZPE generators" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA10566 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:13:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA10516 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:13:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.83]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA05629; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:13:03 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CE6EAF.5621@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <19970717.212238.12286.0.jimaclem@juno.com> <199707171642.JAA03676@darkwing.uoregon.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2061 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: ZPE generators Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:12:48 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > jimaclem@juno.com writes: > > Kyle, > > > > What is a ZPE generator. I'm just a poor engineer and have never > > heard of such a thing. > > > > Thanks, > > jimaclem@juno.com A ZPE generator is a device (a REAL device) that draws energy from a vacuum. The vacuum is actually not empty, but, as steve says, a sea of energy fluctuations. The desity of this energy is thought to be negative, and studies seem to support this. The energy can be tapped by two closely >.1nm placed conductive plates. Several people have built working devices to extract ZPE, one of which produces up to 100,000 times the energy input. Its very expirimental, but more realistic than using antimatter, which doesn't pack nearly the same punch, and costs $100 Billion per milligram. Most scientist doubt that it exists, but this is simply because it would require revision of current theories, and humans like to think they know it all. Be warned, however, there are scientists that are too far out, and will believe anything. I'm in between, a good standing point. ZPE may be replenished by special circumstances (theoretically). > There are some theories being floated around the physics community about > vacuum not being really completely empty, but a sea of sub-particle > energy fluctuations calculated to have a rather surprisingly high energy > density. This energy is supposedly what virtual particle formation > draws from. Kyle is subscribing to an even more radical belief that if > this zero-point energy exists, it's possible to extract energy from it > permanently, which I'm rather dubious about (as you might guess from my > responses). Sorry you feel this way, but ZPE has been tapped already. Heard of Hyde's machine? But most scientists don't listen to amatuers, since we don't have PhD degrees to show. > I'd rather work with plausibly exotic energy-generation > methods like antimatter. Antimatter is too expensive, where ZPE is cheap. Besides, antimatter is only 100% conversion. O/U is better. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 11:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2218" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "11:29:12" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "44" "Re: starship-design: ZPE generators" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA16542 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:29:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA16489 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:29:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA22390; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:28:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA07411; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:29:12 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707171829.LAA07411@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CE6EAF.5621@sunherald.infi.net> References: <19970717.212238.12286.0.jimaclem@juno.com> <199707171642.JAA03676@darkwing.uoregon.edu> <33CE6EAF.5621@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2217 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: ZPE generators Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:29:12 -0700 kyle writes: > A ZPE generator is a device (a REAL device) that draws energy from a > vacuum. The vacuum is actually not empty, but, as steve says, a sea of > energy fluctuations. The desity of this energy is thought to be > negative, and studies seem to support this. The energy can be tapped by > two closely >.1nm placed conductive plates. Several people have built > working devices to extract ZPE, one of which produces up to 100,000 > times the energy input. Its very expirimental, but more realistic than > using antimatter, which doesn't pack nearly the same punch, and costs > $100 Billion per milligram. Most scientist doubt that it exists, but > this is simply because it would require revision of current theories, > and humans like to think they know it all. Be warned, however, there are > scientists that are too far out, and will believe anything. I'm in > between, a good standing point. ZPE may be replenished by special > circumstances (theoretically). Kyle, please provide references and published experiments. If it can't be independently verified, it's not science. A scientist that will believe anything is not a scientist, but a gullible fool. > Sorry you feel this way, but ZPE has been tapped already. Heard of > Hyde's machine? But most scientists don't listen to amatuers, since we > don't have PhD degrees to show. It's not a matter of whether you have a PhD or professional certification. It's whether you have independently verifiable experimental results. The truth stands up to scrutiny, and falsehood doesn't. Cold fusion and other hoaxes fell apart because nobody could duplicate the purported original results. So again, I ask, where are your references for this? > > I'd rather work with plausibly exotic energy-generation > > methods like antimatter. > > Antimatter is too expensive, where ZPE is cheap. Besides, antimatter is > only 100% conversion. O/U is better. Antimatter has a firm theoretical and experimental track record. Aside from your assertions, I've never seen any references to successful experiments to extract vacuum energy; certainly nothing involving independent verification from multiple sources. Put up or shut up, Kyle. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 11:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2477" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "02:34:09" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "61" "Re: starship-design: ZPE generators" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA18068 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:34:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA18030 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:34:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id OuM07187; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:31:59 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.023409.12110.2.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <19970717.212238.12286.0.jimaclem@juno.com> <199707171642.JAA03676@darkwing.uoregon.edu> <33CE6EAF.5621@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-54,59 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2476 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net Cc: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: ZPE generators Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 02:34:09 -0400 On Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:12:48 -0700 kyle writes: >Steve VanDevender wrote: >> >> jimaclem@juno.com writes: >> > Kyle, >> > >> > What is a ZPE generator. I'm just a poor engineer and have >never >> > heard of such a thing. >> > >> > Thanks, >> > jimaclem@juno.com > >A ZPE generator is a device (a REAL device) that draws energy from a >vacuum. The vacuum is actually not empty, but, as steve says, a sea of >energy fluctuations. The desity of this energy is thought to be >negative, and studies seem to support this. The energy can be tapped >by >two closely >.1nm placed conductive plates. Several people have built >working devices to extract ZPE, one of which produces up to 100,000 >times the energy input. Its very expirimental, but more realistic than >using antimatter, which doesn't pack nearly the same punch, and costs >$100 Billion per milligram. Most scientist doubt that it exists, but >this is simply because it would require revision of current theories, >and humans like to think they know it all. Be warned, however, there >are >scientists that are too far out, and will believe anything. I'm in >between, a good standing point. ZPE may be replenished by special >circumstances (theoretically). > >> There are some theories being floated around the physics community >about >> vacuum not being really completely empty, but a sea of sub-particle >> energy fluctuations calculated to have a rather surprisingly high >energy >> density. This energy is supposedly what virtual particle formation >> draws from. Kyle is subscribing to an even more radical belief that >if >> this zero-point energy exists, it's possible to extract energy from >it >> permanently, which I'm rather dubious about (as you might guess from >my >> responses). > >Sorry you feel this way, but ZPE has been tapped already. Heard of >Hyde's machine? But most scientists don't listen to amatuers, since we >don't have PhD degrees to show. > >> I'd rather work with plausibly exotic energy-generation >> methods like antimatter. > >Antimatter is too expensive, where ZPE is cheap. Besides, antimatter >is >only 100% conversion. O/U is better. Say WHAT!!!!!!!!!!???????? Even if ZPE is where matter and energy come from, there are still going to be energy losses. Send me a list of references so I can study this myself. I do agree about the price of antimatter, though, I am an engineer, I get paid to solve production problems. :) From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 11:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2705" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "02:31:47" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "66" "Re: starship-design: ZPE generators" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA18253 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:34:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA18182 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:34:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id OuL07187; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:31:59 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.023409.12110.1.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <19970717.212238.12286.0.jimaclem@juno.com> <199707171642.JAA03676@darkwing.uoregon.edu> <33CE6EAF.5621@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-54,60-61,64 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2704 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net Cc: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: ZPE generators Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 02:31:47 -0400 On Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:12:48 -0700 kyle writes: >Steve VanDevender wrote: >> >> jimaclem@juno.com writes: >> > Kyle, >> > >> > What is a ZPE generator. I'm just a poor engineer and have >never >> > heard of such a thing. >> > >> > Thanks, >> > jimaclem@juno.com > >A ZPE generator is a device (a REAL device) that draws energy from a >vacuum. The vacuum is actually not empty, but, as steve says, a sea of >energy fluctuations. The desity of this energy is thought to be >negative, and studies seem to support this. The energy can be tapped >by >two closely >.1nm placed conductive plates. Several people have built >working devices to extract ZPE, one of which produces up to 100,000 >times the energy input. Its very expirimental, but more realistic than >using antimatter, which doesn't pack nearly the same punch, and costs >$100 Billion per milligram. Most scientist doubt that it exists, but >this is simply because it would require revision of current theories, >and humans like to think they know it all. Be warned, however, there >are >scientists that are too far out, and will believe anything. I'm in >between, a good standing point. ZPE may be replenished by special >circumstances (theoretically). > >> There are some theories being floated around the physics community >about >> vacuum not being really completely empty, but a sea of sub-particle >> energy fluctuations calculated to have a rather surprisingly high >energy >> density. This energy is supposedly what virtual particle formation >> draws from. Kyle is subscribing to an even more radical belief that >if >> this zero-point energy exists, it's possible to extract energy from >it >> permanently, which I'm rather dubious about (as you might guess from >my >> responses). > >Sorry you feel this way, but ZPE has been tapped already. Heard of >Hyde's machine? But most scientists don't listen to amatuers, since we >don't have PhD degrees to show. > >> I'd rather work with plausibly exotic energy-generation >> methods like antimatter. > >Antimatter is too expensive, where ZPE is cheap. Besides, antimatter >is >only 100% conversion. O/U is better. ???????????????????? Say WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate to say it, but how is it possible to get greater than 100% matter to energy conversion. Even if ZPE is where matter and energy comes from, there are bound to be entropy losses. I WOULD like to see a list of references that I can study myself, but until then, this sounds like perpetual motion. Sorry. :) P.S. I have to agree, though, that the present price of antimatter is prohibitive, but I'm an engineer, I get paid to solve production problems. :) From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 12:09 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["435" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "13:09:18" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "14" "starship-design: ZPE pages" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA03788 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:09:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA03712 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:09:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-102.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.102]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA07528; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 15:09:32 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CE7BEE.1273@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 434 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: ZPE pages Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:09:18 -0700 You wanted references? Here they are: And I have more. http://www.padrak.com/ine/index.html http://www.tyrian/IPS/MR/00000190.html http://www.newphys.se/elektromagnum/ http://zenergy.com/ I'm no fool, I am a scientist, and I don't just accept any idea that comes along. Perhaps "professional" scientists are to "good" to listen to us amatuers? Amatuers flew first, built phones first, TV's, etc. Listen to us more. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 13:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["769" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "13:23:19" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "21" "starship-design: ZPE pages" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA02978 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:23:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA02940 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:23:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA04234; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:22:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA07681; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:23:19 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707172023.NAA07681@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CE7BEE.1273@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CE7BEE.1273@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 768 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: ZPE pages Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:23:19 -0700 kyle writes: > You wanted references? Here they are: And I have more. > > http://www.padrak.com/ine/index.html > http://www.tyrian/IPS/MR/00000190.html > http://www.newphys.se/elektromagnum/ > http://zenergy.com/ > > I'm no fool, I am a scientist, and I don't just accept any idea that > comes along. Perhaps "professional" scientists are to "good" to listen > to us amatuers? Amatuers flew first, built phones first, TV's, etc. > Listen to us more. > > Kyle Mcallister As I said, if even an amateur finds the truth, it will be believed -- eventually. But it's necessary to apply skepticism to any discovery and have the patience and tenacity to put it through rigorous verification. Finding the truth isn't just a matter of listening, but testing. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 14:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["827" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "23:28:58" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "23" "starship-design: Re: What is gravity?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA28332 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:28:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA28303 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0woy6c-000JinC; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:28:58 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 826 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: What is gravity? Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:28:58 +0200 (MET DST) Jim >I[f] space-time is treated as if it were a compressible fluid, then the >effects (at least some of them) of gravity are recreated, i.e., in the >presence of a mass, space-time compresses, and a ray of light entering >this region is bent, as Einstein predicted. Now, I'm NOT saying that >space-time IS a compressible fluid, just that it seems to act like one. Of course this density model is nearly the same as the curvature model. The clear difference is that curvature usually implies a 2 dimensional world, while density is usually associated with 3 dimensions. >I'm still working on the real numbers for this hypothesis, and hope to >have them posted here soon. Ah, will you be using tensors? If so, can you explain me a bit about tensors (in practical pictorial examples). I'll be in great debt... Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 14:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1232" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "23:28:54" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "41" "starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA28520 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:29:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA28485 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:29:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0woy6Y-000JimC; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:28:54 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1231 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:28:54 +0200 (MET DST) To all, and especially Steve, Kyle and Jim, >I'm not yet certain, but a collection of dipoles placed with the south >poles inside the sphere and the north poles placed outside is just that, >a collection of dipoles. A monopole should have only a single pole, >regardless of where you place your sensors. A plot of the magnetic lines >of force might help demonstrate this. Such a configuration of dipoles still doesn't have an all North outside! If one measures carefully, one will see that between the North poles there are concentrated South (and West and East) parts. When having a magnetic dipole, you should always be able to complete a loop when drawing a field line: N-pole -> outside the magnet -> S-pole -> inside the magnet. ___ / \ | \ N +++++ \ + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | S +++++ / | / \____/ So, as far as I know, you won't be able to build a monopole with dipoles, unless you somehow manage to break the field line (that's why I spoke about space distortion) I could imagine that near the event horizon of a black hole the lines are broken similar to the fact that electric-charge field lines are absorbed. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 14:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1598" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "23:28:56" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "38" "starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA28731 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:29:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA28672 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:29:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0woy6a-000JitC; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:28:56 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1597 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:28:56 +0200 (MET DST) Antonio wrote: >... near sulforous vents on the sea floor - possibly >also exist _somewhere_ on Venus and/or the gas giants. If that is so, than indeed life is much more likely to exist there. A stable environment and energy source seem to be the key factors in all the places where we think microscopic live evolves. I used to think that Venus was too hot to have a usable liquid, but then again there are many liquids at a temperature of say 300C. > Gas giants present growing pressures towards their centers, to the >point where the "gas" possibly liquefies and then solidifies. Conditions >at some "altitude" might resemble the above sulfurous vents or even the >surface of Venus itself. When gas-planet was mentioned I assumed that the gas was meant to be the medium where live evolved. Indeed the likeliest place would be somewhere at the border between solid an liquid gasses. I think though that the enormous pressures will favour certain chemical reactions over others in a very unequal way and thus limit the possibilites significantly. So in the gas zone the environment is too unstable for new life to get stronger before it is killed. The liquid zone also is too unstable, unless it is near a solid environment, where it can "settle" in a "pool". The solid and liquid environments likely favour specific chemical reactions and thus limit the amount of different possibilities. ! I'm not 100% certain about high pressure favouring certain chemical reactions. Is there someone who has more knowledge about this, and who can acknowledge or disaffirm my speculations? Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 14:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1767" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "15:54:11" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "41" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA08924 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:54:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA08879 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:54:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.85]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA00067; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 17:54:20 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CEA292.C38@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1766 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: Timothy van der Linden CC: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 15:54:11 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > Antonio wrote: > > >... near sulforous vents on the sea floor - possibly > >also exist _somewhere_ on Venus and/or the gas giants. > > If that is so, than indeed life is much more likely to exist there. A stable > environment and energy source seem to be the key factors in all the places > where we think microscopic live evolves. > I used to think that Venus was too hot to have a usable liquid, but then > again there are many liquids at a temperature of say 300C. > > > Gas giants present growing pressures towards their centers, to the > >point where the "gas" possibly liquefies and then solidifies. Conditions > >at some "altitude" might resemble the above sulfurous vents or even the > >surface of Venus itself. > > When gas-planet was mentioned I assumed that the gas was meant to be the > medium where live evolved. > Indeed the likeliest place would be somewhere at the border between solid an > liquid gasses. I think though that the enormous pressures will favour > certain chemical reactions over others in a very unequal way and thus limit > the possibilites significantly. > > So in the gas zone the environment is too unstable for new life to get > stronger before it is killed. > The liquid zone also is too unstable, unless it is near a solid environment, > where it can "settle" in a "pool". > The solid and liquid environments likely favour specific chemical reactions > and thus limit the amount of different possibilities. > > ! I'm not 100% certain about high pressure favouring certain chemical reactions. > Is there someone who has more knowledge about this, and who can acknowledge > or disaffirm my speculations? Wouldn't the temperatures at the solid region be too hot for life? >1000C Kyle From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 19:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["772" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "09:26:50" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "27" "starship-design: Re: What is gravity?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA10218 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 19:40:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA10200 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 19:40:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id WvS07187; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:35:39 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970717.223813.8854.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-9,11-20,22-25 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 771 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: What is gravity? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:26:50 -0400 On Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:28:58 +0200 (MET DST) TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) writes: >Of course this density model is nearly the same as the curvature >model. The >clear difference is that curvature usually implies a 2 dimensional >world, >while density is usually associated with 3 dimensions. Indeed, I think it can help to devise ways to think in 3 dimensions, since that is the reality of the situation. >>I'm still working on the real numbers for this hypothesis, and hope >to >>have them posted here soon. > >Ah, will you be using tensors? If so, can you explain me a bit about >tensors >(in practical pictorial examples). I'll be in great debt... You bet, though my understanding of tensors is not as strong as I would like, yet. Jim From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 19:43 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["711" "Thu" "17" "July" "1997" "22:43:34" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "22" "Re: starship-design: ZPE pages" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA10750 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 19:43:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA10732 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 19:43:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id WzL07187; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:41:07 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970717.224335.8854.1.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <33CE7BEE.1273@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-17,20 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 710 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: ZPE pages Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:43:34 -0400 On Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:09:18 -0700 kyle writes: >You wanted references? Here they are: And I have more. > >http://www.padrak.com/ine/index.html >http://www.tyrian/IPS/MR/00000190.html >http://www.newphys.se/elektromagnum/ >http://zenergy.com/ > >I'm no fool, I am a scientist, and I don't just accept any idea that >comes along. Perhaps "professional" scientists are to "good" to listen >to us amatuers? Amatuers flew first, built phones first, TV's, etc. >Listen to us more. > >Kyle Mcallister > Thanks for the references, I'll get back to you on this when I have a chance to read these. Don't worry, I do listen to every point of view, but I'm steeped in an engineer's cynicism. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 21:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2106" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "00:42:22" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "54" "Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA07988 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:42:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA07967 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:42:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA18551; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:42:22 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970718004220_581676747@emout19.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2105 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: bakelaar@injersey.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:42:22 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/14/97 12:24:48 PM, bakelaar@injersey.com (Bakelaar) wrote: >article: > >it sounds like science fiction: a fountain of antmatter >spewing from the center of our galaxy. but that is just what >astronomers claim they have discovered, using nasa's compton >gamma ray observatory satellite. > >launched into eart orbit six years ago, the observatory >monitors the heavens for emissions of gamma rays. in april, >a research team led by astronomers at northwestern univ. >and the naval research lab. in washington announced that the >observatory had foudn gamma rays emanating from a fountain- >shaped region that appears to originate at the milky way's >center. the high energy gammy-ray emissions were measured >at 511,000 electron volts - precisely the energy produced >when positrons (the antiparticles of electrons) are >annihilated by collisions with normal matter. "its an >unmistakable signature of the annihilation" says charles >dermer, a theorist at the navy lab who is helping to >interpret the findings. > >what could be generating the positrons? on earth, positrons >are produced by the decay of certain radioactive isotopes >but are quickly destroyed when they collide. dermer and >colleague jeff skibo point out that positrons are also >produced by supernovas, explosions of massive stars. >successions of supernovas at the milky way's center could >have sent a fountain of hot gases, mixed with positrons, >shooting high above the galactic plane. mingling with the >hot gad would destroy the positrons and produce the observed >gamma rays, astronomers say. > >however, other scientists have proposed a different source for >the positrons: one or more black holes believed to exist at >the galaxy's center. > >by andrew chaikin > >so guys, what do you think of this? id like to hear >what you think... if its true or not, if they got anything >wrong... etc etc. > >ben Sounds likely. We expected to find a big blackholes in the galactic center. Mater geting sucked in and other effects can produce antimatter. Strange that its that rich a source thou. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 17 21:43 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4418" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "00:42:30" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "117" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA08013 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:43:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout01.mail.aol.com (emout01.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.92]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA08000 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:43:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout01.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA20814; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:42:30 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970718004228_-1778104757@emout01.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4417 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:42:30 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/15/97 10:00:24 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >>>Immune systems usually see almost every non-self organism as dangerous. I >>>wouldn't think that it doesn't matter much whether the non-self organism >>>comes from space or Earth. >>>In some cases the body even starts killing something of itself, this is >>>called an auto-immune disease. >> >>Immune systems arn't that good at detecting, much less combating, 'any' >>non-self organism. They are best at detecting and defeating things that the >>organism routinly is attacked by. Alien micro life would not be something >>were 'tuned' to fight or look for. > >As far as I know they are quite good at detecting, only finding the >"antidote" before it is too late can be a problem. However antibiotics >usually can help quite a lot. You can't use an antibiotic on alien microbes. They work by suttle disruption of celular chemistry. I.E. something that will kill them, but not us. >And even if we were not immune to alien bacteria, would we be able to spot >it? Likely there are more Earthly bacteria that kill people than Space bacteria. No way to know. Can't even know anything basic about their celular construction or chemistry. >>>>As to the microbes from space, thats a very thinly defined theory. Besides >>>>it still gets back to no signs of alien organisms alive here now. >>> >>>The latter is exactly the point I wanted to make. No apparent signs, so >>>whatever comes down, doesn't seem to spread. >> >>Or never came here, or whiped out an area to quickly to sustain itself. > >Well, that's why I didn't mention it the other discussion :) > >To get back to the point: Why would alien bacteria survive better than Earth >bacteria? Each taken out of its eco-would tend to react radically. Most plagues are from microbes, parasites, or animals that were introduced to an alien species or ecosystem. So I expect earths microbes or vermine would be as deadly there as alien stuff would be here. Course the microbes are more hardy, so they should survive better. >>>Expecting it, has shown to be completely different from knowing it. >>>Everyone knows that it is quite likely that something terrible can be >>>expected to happen to them during their lifetime. Yet many get badly hurt >>>psychologically when it actually happens. >>>Primordial microbes from Mars hardly compare to beings that have technology >>>that looks like magic. >> >>Still its unlikely to make us all run home and hide under the bed. It never >>did before when we encountered alien (foreign) cultures with magical >>technologies and alien forms. I can't see we'ld be that much less able to >>handel the same thing now or in the future? > >Which "cultures with magical technology" do you mean. I can't recall when WE >encountered them before. True other cultures did, but I thought they usually >believed in magic. We as in humans. Obviously the current dominent cultures are to recent. But the Japanise in the late 1800's to the abos walking out of the jungle today give plenty of data sources. >>>I didn't mean we were a threath to the aliens. If they start spreading >>>technology, some nations may use it in a different way than intended, which >>>may change world power in sudden ways. (Eg. Give Saddam Hoessein a ZPE bomb, >>>which he nicely puts somewhere in New York.) >> >>My point was the aliens wouldn't care about those effects. If we can't play >>nice with the new toys, thats our problem. > >Why then contact us and give us the data? Just for the fun to see what happens? What else do they have to trade? Besiodes, exploreres usually have to give gifts to the primatives. Helps prevent becoming dinner. ;) Seriously thou. To them it would be the equivalent of tossing out a handfull of beeds. >>>>If Aliens came all this way, we'ld be the major area of interest on this >>>>rock. >>> >>>True, but dropping in as anthropologists would certainly destroy what they >>>where looking for. Only if they are psychologists, they would enjoy playing >>>games with us. >> >>Anthropologists would tend to disagree. > >What good is destroying your test subject if your only example? > >Tim What good is exploring if you never take a look at anything? If you don't interact with the natives, you might as well stay home. Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 05:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["461" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "14:58:05" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "20" "starship-design: Re: What is gravity?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA02025 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 05:57:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA02006 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 05:57:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-008.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wpCbl-000GsOC; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:58:05 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 460 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: What is gravity? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:58:05 +0200 (MET DST) Jim, You wrote: >Indeed, I think it [the model] can help to devise ways to think in >3 dimensions, since that is the reality of the situation. Well, reality is more like 4 dimensions... >>Ah, will you be using tensors? If so, can you explain me a bit about >>tensors (in practical pictorial examples). I'll be in great debt... > >You bet, though my understanding of tensors is not as strong as I would >like, yet. I'm curious for your results. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 05:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4108" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "14:57:59" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "95" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA02083 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 05:58:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA02071 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 05:58:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-008.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wpCbf-000GsKC; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:57:59 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4107 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:57:59 +0200 (MET DST) Kelly, >>As far as I know they are quite good at detecting, only finding the >>"antidote" before it is too late can be a problem. However antibiotics >>usually can help quite a lot. > >You can't use an antibiotic on alien microbes. They work by suttle >disruption of celular chemistry. I.E. something that will kill them, but not >us. Well, these chemicals make certain important biological chemical reactions impossible. Unless the alien bacteria use very different ways to stay alive, they may not be influenced. This is possible, but likely means that the bacteria cannot survive in the climate of our body (which provides only chemicals that are in a specific biological cycle that needs the climate of our body). >>And even if we were not immune to alien bacteria, would we be able to spot >>it? Likely there are more Earthly bacteria that kill people than Space >>bacteria. > >No way to know. Can't even know anything basic about their celular >construction or chemistry. Well of course we can't be sure about their chemistry, but in my discussions I assumed that they where based on DNA like we. If not, than all bets (from me) are off. I know too little about the possible chemical reaction-cycles in other systems. >>Well, that's why I didn't mention it the other discussion :) >> >>To get back to the point: Why would alien bacteria survive better than Earth >>bacteria? > >Each taken out of its eco-would tend to react radically. Yes.. they radically die. We never hear about the millions of strange bacteria that don't survive their visit to local cousins. Only the few that are stronger will leave a noticable fingerprint. It's hard to make conclusions when you've seen only one side of the story. I'd think that one could easely research this question. Just dump a few strange bacteria in a huge colony of "normal" bacteria and see what happens. If the strange bacteria turn out to survive all the time, then indeed you are right, but I strongly doubt that. My guess is that in most of the cases the local bacteria will survive over the foreign bacteria. The locals are usually much better adapted to the local climate (=temperature, chemicals, enemies, friends). I bet that only a few foreign bacteria will have a sufficiently high evolution that they can prosper in a new environment. >So I expect earths microbes or vermine would be as deadly >there as alien stuff would be here. Course the microbes are more hardy, so >they should survive better. Huh, this seems to be a paradox. If our bacteria kill theirs, than that would mean our bacteria are stronger. So then, how can their bacteria kill ours when they meet here? >>Which "cultures with magical technology" do you mean. I can't recall when WE >>encountered them before. True other cultures did, but I thought they usually >>believed in magic. > >We as in humans. Obviously the current dominent cultures are to recent. >But the Japanise in the late 1800's to the abos walking out of the jungle >today give plenty of data sources. Hmmm, didn't most of them believe in supernatural rather than in facts? >>Why then contact us and give us the data? Just for the fun to see what >>happens? > >What else do they have to trade? Besiodes, exploreres usually have to give >gifts to the primatives. Helps prevent becoming dinner. ;) > >Seriously thou. To them it would be the equivalent of tossing out a handfull >of beeds. Kelly, I see where this discussion is going. We've dozens of these in our private letters. We're likely not to agree about this question soon, our "fundamentals" (=my ideals and your reality) are still far apart (though the do come closer). >>What good is destroying your test subject if your only example? > >What good is exploring if you never take a look at anything? If you don't >interact with the natives, you might as well stay home. Oh, you may interact with them, but they first have to grow to the fact that they are not alone out there. Like I wrote you before, one can't force people into new developments. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 05:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["663" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "14:58:02" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "19" "starship-design: Sigh" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA02176 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 05:58:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA02157 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 05:58:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-008.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wpCbi-000GsNC; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:58:02 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 662 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Sigh Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:58:02 +0200 (MET DST) Hello, I know I've been complaining that I didn't get some letters a few weeks ago. Now I'm complaining that I get a lot of my letters in duplicate. The duplicate letters are the ones that are a reply to MY letter. I quite sure this is because several of you use the Reply-to-ALL button. SD always includes two addresses (the one of the author and the one of SD) and when using that nice gleaming button, you'll sent two letters at once. Please, take care when using that button and reply just to SD. It really gets annoying to start reading and discover that it is once again a duplicate. Thanks, Timothy P.S. I'm quite sure that I'm not the only victim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 05:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["464" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "14:58:03" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "16" "starship-design: Re: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA02249 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 05:59:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA02228 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 05:59:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-008.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wpCbj-000GsMC; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:58:03 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 463 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:58:03 +0200 (MET DST) Kyle replied to me: >>! I'm not 100% certain about high pressure favouring certain chemical >> reactions. >> Is there someone who has more knowledge about this, and who can acknowledge >> or disaffirm my speculations? > >Wouldn't the temperatures at the solid region be too hot for life? Yes, that too. I guess "too hot" is just another terminology for "favour other chemical reactions" or even "favour physical reactions over chemical reactions". Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 06:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1860" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "09:17:48" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "57" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA05446 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 06:16:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA05427 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 06:16:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JiX04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:15:19 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.091752.9150.1.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970718004228_-1778104757@emout01.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-46,53-55 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1859 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: KellySt@aol.com Cc: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:17:48 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:42:30 -0400 (EDT) KellySt@aol.com writes: > >In a message dated 7/15/97 10:00:24 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl >(Timothy >van der Linden) wrote: > >>Kelly, >> >>>>Immune systems usually see almost every non-self organism as >dangerous. I >>>>wouldn't think that it doesn't matter much whether the non-self >organism >>>>comes from space or Earth. >>>>In some cases the body even starts killing something of itself, >this is >>>>called an auto-immune disease. >>> >>>Immune systems arn't that good at detecting, much less combating, >'any' >>>non-self organism. They are best at detecting and defeating things >that >the >>>organism routinly is attacked by. Alien micro life would not be >something >>>were 'tuned' to fight or look for. >> >>As far as I know they are quite good at detecting, only finding the >>"antidote" before it is too late can be a problem. However >antibiotics >>usually can help quite a lot. > >You can't use an antibiotic on alien microbes. They work by suttle >disruption of celular chemistry. I.E. something that will kill them, >but not >us. > >>And even if we were not immune to alien bacteria, would we be able to >spot >>it? Likely there are more Earthly bacteria that kill people than >Space >bacteria. > >No way to know. Can't even know anything basic about their celular >construction or chemistry. > Just a thought to consider folks. All living organisms on this planet, including viruses have DNA and RNA constructed from the same four proteins, adenine, cytosine, guanine and tyrosine. (And I do mean ALL life forms on this planet, from viruses to trees to us). The chances that an alien microbe, or anything else, would use these same proteins seem rather small, thus rendering them and us relatively harmless to each other since we cant read each other's cellular codes. Jim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 06:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2442" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "09:04:45" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "63" "Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA05464 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 06:16:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA05445 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 06:16:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JiW04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:15:19 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.091752.9150.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970718004220_581676747@emout19.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-58,61 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2441 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: KellySt@aol.com Cc: bakelaar@injersey.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:04:45 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:42:22 -0400 (EDT) KellySt@aol.com writes: > >In a message dated 7/14/97 12:24:48 PM, bakelaar@injersey.com >(Bakelaar) >wrote: > >>article: >> >>it sounds like science fiction: a fountain of antmatter >>spewing from the center of our galaxy. but that is just what >>astronomers claim they have discovered, using nasa's compton >>gamma ray observatory satellite. >> >>launched into eart orbit six years ago, the observatory >>monitors the heavens for emissions of gamma rays. in april, >>a research team led by astronomers at northwestern univ. >>and the naval research lab. in washington announced that the >>observatory had foudn gamma rays emanating from a fountain- >>shaped region that appears to originate at the milky way's >>center. the high energy gammy-ray emissions were measured >>at 511,000 electron volts - precisely the energy produced >>when positrons (the antiparticles of electrons) are >>annihilated by collisions with normal matter. "its an >>unmistakable signature of the annihilation" says charles >>dermer, a theorist at the navy lab who is helping to >>interpret the findings. >> >>what could be generating the positrons? on earth, positrons >>are produced by the decay of certain radioactive isotopes >>but are quickly destroyed when they collide. dermer and >>colleague jeff skibo point out that positrons are also >>produced by supernovas, explosions of massive stars. >>successions of supernovas at the milky way's center could >>have sent a fountain of hot gases, mixed with positrons, >>shooting high above the galactic plane. mingling with the >>hot gad would destroy the positrons and produce the observed >>gamma rays, astronomers say. >> >>however, other scientists have proposed a different source for >>the positrons: one or more black holes believed to exist at >>the galaxy's center. >> >>by andrew chaikin >> >>so guys, what do you think of this? id like to hear >>what you think... if its true or not, if they got anything >>wrong... etc etc. >> >>ben > >Sounds likely. We expected to find a big blackholes in the galactic >center. > Mater geting sucked in and other effects can produce antimatter. >Strange >that its that rich a source thou. > >Kelly > Fascinating. This raises my hopes for finding a simple, relatively inexpensive way to generate antimatter for our own use. Perhaps nuclear reactions in the presence of an artificial hypermass? HMMMM!! :) From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 06:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["389" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "09:25:11" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "19" "starship-design: Re: What is gravity?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA06624 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 06:23:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA06572 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 06:23:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JkN04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:22:30 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.092511.9150.3.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-17 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 388 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: What is gravity? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:25:11 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:58:05 +0200 (MET DST) TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) writes: >Jim, > >You wrote: > >>Indeed, I think it [the model] can help to devise ways to think in >>3 dimensions, since that is the reality of the situation. > >Well, reality is more like 4 dimensions... > Hmm, your right about that, I may have to revise my thinking on this. thanks Jim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 06:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["899" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "09:23:04" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "31" "Re: starship-design: Sigh" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA06828 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 06:23:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA06808 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 06:23:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JkM04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:22:29 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.092511.9150.2.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-27,29 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 898 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Sigh Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:23:04 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:58:02 +0200 (MET DST) TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) writes: >Hello, > >I know I've been complaining that I didn't get some letters a few >weeks ago. >Now I'm complaining that I get a lot of my letters in duplicate. > >The duplicate letters are the ones that are a reply to MY letter. I >quite >sure this is because several of you use the Reply-to-ALL button. SD >always >includes two addresses (the one of the author and the one of SD) and >when >using that nice gleaming button, you'll sent two letters at once. > >Please, take care when using that button and reply just to SD. It >really >gets annoying to start reading and discover that it is once again a >duplicate. > >Thanks, Timothy > > >P.S. I'm quite sure that I'm not the only victim > > Yep, I have discovered this also. Sorry for the duplicates, I will try to improve this situation. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 07:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1174" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "08:54:19" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "25" "Re: starship-design: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA23363 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 07:54:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA23352 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 07:54:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.106]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA17538 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:54:34 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CF91AA.548B@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <970718004150_-789710390@emout12.mail.aol.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1173 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Aliens Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:54:19 -0700 KellySt@aol.com wrote: > > Life in a gas giant is possible, but it would have to survive drifting in the > updrafts and stuff. I'ld guess technology would be pretty much a no go. Actually, Timothy showed me that technology wouldn't be much of a problem (using materials in atmosphere, dead bodies broken down for materials, etc.) Its my guess that spacetravel (probably between planet and moons) would be developed early, with other tech falling below, but not impossible. After all, flight would have already been established. Spacetravel to nearby moons would provide other resources that were scarce in the jovian planets atmosphere. > > The moons around gas giants don't have to be earth sized. As a mater of fact > the two likelyest areas in our solar system for life are Titan and Europa > The later having liquid water oceans, the former very complex organic soup. > True. I was thinking of earth-like life. The fact of the matter is, life is probably very diverse and of very wide variety. Does anyone have any ideas on Silicon, Boron, or others as possible base chemicals for life? Perhaps on freezing planets ammonia could replace water. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 08:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["310" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "09:00:39" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "8" "Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA25206 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:00:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA25187 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:00:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.106]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA25595 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:00:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CF9327.B93@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <970718004220_581676747@emout19.mail.aol.com> <19970718.091752.9150.0.jimaclem@juno.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 309 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:00:39 -0700 jimaclem@juno.com wrote: > > Fascinating. This raises my hopes for finding a simple, relatively > inexpensive way to generate antimatter for our own use. Perhaps nuclear > reactions in the presence of an artificial hypermass? HMMMM!! :) What is an artificial hypermass? How do you propose making them? From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 09:03 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["645" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "18:03:52" "+0200" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "19" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA13305 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:03:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA13281 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:03:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-008.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wpFVY-000H0wC; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:03:52 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 644 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:03:52 +0200 (MET DST) Jim wrote: >Just a thought to consider folks. All living organisms on this planet, >including viruses have DNA and RNA constructed from the same four >proteins, adenine, cytosine, guanine and tyrosine. (And I do mean ALL >life forms on this planet, from viruses to trees to us). The chances >that an alien microbe, or anything else, would use these same proteins >seem rather small, What other building blocks do you suggest? (trick question :) >thus rendering them and us relatively harmless to each >other since we cant read each other's cellular codes. Well if they start using our atoms, then that can be a serious threat. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 09:05 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1133" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "12:05:13" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" "<19970718.120636.4382.4.jimaclem@juno.com>" "27" "Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA13734 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:05:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA13715 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:05:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id MmH04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:03:57 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.120636.4382.4.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970718004220_581676747@emout19.mail.aol.com> <19970718.091752.9150.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-10,21-25 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1132 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:05:13 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:00:39 -0700 kyle writes: >jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >> >> Fascinating. This raises my hopes for finding a simple, relatively >> inexpensive way to generate antimatter for our own use. Perhaps >nuclear >> reactions in the presence of an artificial hyper mass? HMMMM!! :) > >What is an artificial hyper mass? How do you propose making them? > Well, here's the short of it. It appears that a magnetic field of sufficient field density might act like a mass. By constructing a series of magnetic, probably superconducting, arrayed as to produce a set of interference nodes, one of constructive interference, and others of destructive interference, with the constructive node contained within the destructive nodes, for shielding (for lack of a better term), and operating at a resonant frequency, (I don't know what yet), a micro sized, artificial hyper mass might be made. This concept might also prove able to generate sufficient field strengths to contain large masses of antimatter, as well as the old science fiction idea of "force fields". Tell me what you think. Jim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 09:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1209" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "10:14:44" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "26" "Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA17162 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:15:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA17146 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:14:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-97.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.97]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA12233 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:14:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CFA483.71A3@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <970718004220_581676747@emout19.mail.aol.com> <19970718.091752.9150.0.jimaclem@juno.com> <19970718.120636.4382.4.jimaclem@juno.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1208 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:14:44 -0700 jimaclem@juno.com wrote: > > > Well, here's the short of it. It appears that a magnetic field of > sufficient field density might act like a mass. By constructing a series > of magnetic, probably superconducting, arrayed as to produce a set of > interference nodes, one of constructive interference, and others of > destructive interference, with the constructive node contained within the > destructive nodes, for shielding (for lack of a better term), and > operating at a resonant frequency, (I don't know what yet), a micro > sized, artificial hyper mass might be made. This concept might also > prove able to generate sufficient field strengths to contain large masses > of antimatter, as well as the old science fiction idea of "force fields". > > > Tell me what you think. Ah, I see now. I had similar ideas, but everyone kept telling me they were impossible. I think your idea would work, and I am already beginning to work with such things. Be VERY careful with devices like that if you try them, since a hypermass of that small size and ultrahigh mass, could theoretically become a Micro black hole. That could be great for energy/propulsion, but very dangerous. Good idea! Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 09:56 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2886" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "18:47:05" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "69" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA02999 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:56:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA02893 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:56:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id SAA04710; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:47:05 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707181647.SAA04710@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2885 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:47:05 +0200 (MET DST) > From: jimaclem@juno.com > > Just a thought to consider folks. All living organisms on this planet, > including viruses have DNA and RNA constructed from the same four > proteins, > Correction. The components listed below are not proteins, but base components of nucleotides that are segments of DNA and RNA. They code for sequences of amino acids that finally constitute proteins. > adenine, cytosine, guanine and tyrosine. > Correction. In DNA occur: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine; in RNA occur: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil. Tyrosine is an amino acid and hence is a component of proteins. > (And I do mean ALL > life forms on this planet, from viruses to trees to us). The chances > that an alien microbe, or anything else, would use these same proteins > seem rather small, thus rendering them and us relatively harmless to each > other since we cant read each other's cellular codes. > The harm from microbes does not come from reading our cellular codes. The two main sorces of harm are: - eating vital components of our bodies (e.g., cellular membranes, cellular proteins), hence disrupting their functioning; - releasing waste substances that have toxic (disrupting) effects on biochemical pathways in our cells. Both types of harm can be inflicted by alien microbes, if only they are able to survive in the environment of our organisms, which requires: - being resistant to disruptive (toxic, immune-action) influences from substances and enzymes in our cells, - being able to "eat" (metabolize) substances (e.g., proteins) occuring within our bodies. For the alien bacteria to be able to do that, it does not have to have even remotely similar biochemistry to ours, not speaking about the same genetic code... E.g., microbes living on oceanic vents metabolize and thrive on inorganic substances (mostly toxic to us humans), which substances have quite different composition and chemistry than the biochemistry of the microbe bodies. Hence, little can be said IN GENERAL about possible effects of alien microbes on our planet unless SOMETHING more specific is known about their (bio)chemistry. However, from the general knowledge about requirements of very precise tuning of two chemistries in order to made them immune to each other influences follows that it is very improbable for them NOT to interact chemically. And such interaction is most probable to DISRUPT biochemical workings in BOTH sides. Hence, the most probable effect would be that we and aliens are MUTUALLY TOXIC, hence the one with less numbers of organisms within the contact area will perish, possibly doing before that considerable damage to the other (remember "War of the Worlds"...). With full clash of comparatively similar number of organisms, BOTH sides may perish (or be significantly damaged, beyond repair of their original environment). -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 10:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["838" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "13:06:24" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "26" "Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA06239 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:04:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA06226 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:04:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id NGZ04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:04:02 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.130624.3294.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970718004220_581676747@emout19.mail.aol.com> <19970718.091752.9150.0.jimaclem@juno.com> <19970718.120636.4382.4.jimaclem@juno.com> <33CFA483.71A3@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-19,21-24 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 837 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:06:24 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:14:44 -0700 kyle writes: >jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >> >> >> Well, here's the short of it. It appears that a magnetic field of >> sufficient field density might act like a mass. > >Ah, I see now. I had similar ideas, but everyone kept telling me they >were impossible. I think your idea would work, and I am already >beginning to work with such things. Be VERY careful with devices like >that if you try them, since a hypermass of that small size and >ultrahigh >mass, could theoretically become a Micro black hole. That could be >great >for energy/propulsion, but very dangerous. Good idea! > >Kyle Mcallister > Well, I don't know whether it can work or not yet, my numbers aren't all worked out yet. (I know, I keep saying that!). Everyone will get them as soon as I do. Jim Clem From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 10:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1546" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "10:07:17" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "28" "Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA07340 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:07:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA07322 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:07:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA29484 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:06:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA10571; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:07:17 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707181707.KAA10571@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <19970718.120636.4382.4.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970718004220_581676747@emout19.mail.aol.com> <19970718.091752.9150.0.jimaclem@juno.com> <19970718.120636.4382.4.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1545 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:07:17 -0700 jimaclem@juno.com writes: > Well, here's the short of it. It appears that a magnetic field of > sufficient field density might act like a mass. By constructing a series > of magnetic, probably superconducting, arrayed as to produce a set of > interference nodes, one of constructive interference, and others of > destructive interference, with the constructive node contained within the > destructive nodes, for shielding (for lack of a better term), and > operating at a resonant frequency, (I don't know what yet), a micro > sized, artificial hyper mass might be made. This concept might also > prove able to generate sufficient field strengths to contain large masses > of antimatter, as well as the old science fiction idea of "force fields". > > Tell me what you think. My take is that it would be much more efficient to just use electrically-charged or magnetic antimatter and conventional electric or magnetic field generation methods. Equivalency of mass and energy cuts both ways. While an electromagnetic field can have mass, the mass can be no more than the energy in the field. So creating a field dense enough to have a high mass means converting at least that much mass into energy. In the case of trying to do this with a magnetic field, you would also be limited by the requirement that a magnetic field is produced by moving electric charge (unless Kyle can build us a lot of miniature monopoles :-). If these field fluctuate, as you describe, then your device would also start radiating photons like mad. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 10:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3151" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "13:17:58" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "81" "starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA11943 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:17:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA11930 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:17:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id NLT04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:15:34 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.131758.3294.1.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707181647.SAA04710@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-75,77-79 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3150 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:17:58 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:47:05 +0200 (MET DST) Zenon Kulpa writes: >> From: jimaclem@juno.com >> >> Just a thought to consider folks. All living organisms on this >planet, >> including viruses have DNA and RNA constructed from the same four >> proteins, >> >Correction. >The components listed below are not proteins, but base >components of nucleotides that are segments of DNA and RNA. >They code for sequences of amino acids that finally >constitute proteins. > >> adenine, cytosine, guanine and tyrosine. >> >Correction. >In DNA occur: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine; >in RNA occur: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil. >Tyrosine is an amino acid and hence is a component of proteins. > >> (And I do mean ALL >> life forms on this planet, from viruses to trees to us). The >chances >> that an alien microbe, or anything else, would use these same >proteins >> seem rather small, thus rendering them and us relatively harmless to >each >> other since we cant read each other's cellular codes. >> >The harm from microbes does not come from reading our >cellular codes. The two main sorces of harm are: >- eating vital components of our bodies (e.g., cellular > membranes, cellular proteins), hence disrupting > their functioning; >- releasing waste substances that have toxic (disrupting) effects > on biochemical pathways in our cells. > >Both types of harm can be inflicted by alien microbes, if only >they are able to survive in the environment of our organisms, >which requires: >- being resistant to disruptive (toxic, immune-action) > influences from substances and enzymes in our cells, >- being able to "eat" (metabolize) substances (e.g., proteins) > occuring within our bodies. >For the alien bacteria to be able to do that, it does not >have to have even remotely similar biochemistry to ours, >not speaking about the same genetic code... >E.g., microbes living on oceanic vents metabolize >and thrive on inorganic substances (mostly toxic to us humans), >which substances have quite different composition and chemistry >than the biochemistry of the microbe bodies. > >Hence, little can be said IN GENERAL about possible >effects of alien microbes on our planet unless SOMETHING >more specific is known about their (bio)chemistry. > >However, from the general knowledge about requirements >of very precise tuning of two chemistries in order to made >them immune to each other influences follows that it is very >improbable for them NOT to interact chemically. >And such interaction is most probable to DISRUPT >biochemical workings in BOTH sides. Hence, the most >probable effect would be that we and aliens are >MUTUALLY TOXIC, hence the one with less numbers >of organisms within the contact area will perish, >possibly doing before that considerable damage to the other >(remember "War of the Worlds"...). >With full clash of comparatively similar number of organisms, >BOTH sides may perish (or be significantly damaged, beyond >repair of their original environment). > >-- Zenon > OOPS! Okay, I sit corrected, looks like my biology slipped. Thanks for the correction. Jim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 10:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["912" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "13:24:32" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "26" "Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA13324 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:22:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA13310 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:22:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id NOB04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:21:52 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.132433.3294.2.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970718004220_581676747@emout19.mail.aol.com> <199707181707.KAA10571@tzadkiel.efn.org> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-24 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 911 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:24:32 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:07:17 -0700 Steve VanDevender writes: > >My take is that it would be much more efficient to just use >electrically-charged or magnetic antimatter and conventional electric >or >magnetic field generation methods. > >Equivalency of mass and energy cuts both ways. While an >electromagnetic >field can have mass, the mass can be no more than the energy in the >field. So creating a field dense enough to have a high mass means >converting at least that much mass into energy. In the case of trying >to do this with a magnetic field, you would also be limited by the >requirement that a magnetic field is produced by moving electric >charge >(unless Kyle can build us a lot of miniature monopoles :-). If these >field fluctuate, as you describe, then your device would also start >radiating photons like mad. > Hmm, good point on the matter energy equivalency. Jim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 11:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1322" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "14:48:47" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "24" "starship-design: New discussion" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA15604 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:47:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA15591 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:47:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id OpU04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:46:36 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.144848.3270.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-1,20-22 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1321 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: New discussion Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:48:47 -0400 Okay, Since my wild-haired ideas have been thoroughly picked at, I'll go to another subject, power for the Argosey, M.A.R.S. concepts. It is stated in those documents that power on the order of 10^18 watts, or 10^15 kilowatts will be required to drive a heavy sail-craft. Here's an idea for getting that energy. If you note the document on carbonaceous chondrite asteroids, you will find that those appear to have a silicate content of some 83 %. If we mine these and use this material to build solar panels, LARGE panels, and place them orbiting the sun at about the orbit of Venus, we can get approximately 1 kilowatt for 3 m^2 of panel, assuming a final conversion rate of 10%. Thus one square kilometer of panel will generate approximately 3 * 10^5 kilowatts. Placing these at the distance of Mercury will generate some 9 * 10^5 kilowatts. Lets assume that efficiency improvements will allow this to approximately double, giving some 2 * 10^6 kilowatts. 10^15 kilowatts now can be produced with some 1,000,000,000 square kilometers of panels, orbiting at the same distance as Mercury. (Yep, those numbers seem to be right). This gives a disk some 36,000 kilometers in diameter!!!!! Just trying to start a dialog on this problem, as this seems the best and quickest way to get probes out there. Jim Clem From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 12:55 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2262" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "21:54:05" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "65" "Re: starship-design: ZPE pages" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA08440 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:55:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA08419 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:55:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id VAA04879; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:54:05 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707181954.VAA04879@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2261 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: ZPE pages Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:54:05 +0200 (MET DST) I have looked at the URLs you gave, and here goes my opinion. > From: kyle > > You wanted references? Here they are: And I have more. > > http://www.tyrian/IPS/MR/00000190.html > Should be: http://www.tyrian.com/IPS/MR/00000190.html Contains a bibliographic entry only: Puthoff, H. E. Source of Vacuum Electromagnetic Zero-Point Energy Vol. 44, N.5, p.4857-4862 Physical Review A --Nov 1,1989 >From the title it seems to be a speculation as to the possible physics behind ZPE. Certainly does not signify near possibility to construct and use ZPE generators. If I am mistaken, please scan and send us (the relevant fragments of) the text of that paper. > http://www.padrak.com/ine/index.html > http://www.newphys.se/elektromagnum/ > http://zenergy.com/ > Sorry, all these sites display very marked features of pseudoscience. Extraordinary claims of simple devices generating kilowatts of "free energy" but none of them repeatable by others than their designers. Although one cannot dismiss altogether that some of these ideas might one time prove to be viable (though I personally doubt it), one certainly cannot claim that we have already, or will have in near future, ready-to-use "free energy" devices. Show me either REPEATABLE experiments with sound physical/theoretical explanations why they work, or a company selling with profit the energy from their "free energy" plant. Then I will give the matter a second chance. As yet, I see there only unsubstantiated claims and a lot of outcry about "conspiracy" of scientists and governments to suppress the activity of "free energists"... > I'm no fool, I am a scientist, and I don't just accept any idea that > comes along. Perhaps "professional" scientists are to "good" to listen > to us amatuers? Amatuers flew first, built phones first, TV's, etc. > Listen to us more. > I will listen when they deliver. Personally, I think you waste your time being too excited and preoccupied by unsubstantiated claims of pseudoscientists. You would made better use of your enthusiasm and intelligence learning some more hard science (though it is sometimes hard on gray matter, I know... ;-). It is for your decision, though. With best & friendly wishes -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 13:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2672" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "16:09:26" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "79" "Re: starship-design: ZPE pages" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA14825 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:13:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA14804 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:13:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id QQF04793; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:07:11 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970718.160926.4334.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707181954.VAA04879@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-70,73-77 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2671 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: ZPE pages Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:09:26 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:54:05 +0200 (MET DST) Zenon Kulpa writes: >I have looked at the URLs you gave, and here goes my opinion. > >> From: kyle >> >> You wanted references? Here they are: And I have more. >> >> http://www.tyrian/IPS/MR/00000190.html >> >Should be: http://www.tyrian.com/IPS/MR/00000190.html >Contains a bibliographic entry only: > >Puthoff, H. E. > Source of Vacuum Electromagnetic Zero-Point Energy > Vol. 44, N.5, p.4857-4862 > Physical Review A --Nov 1,1989 > >>From the title it seems to be a speculation as to the possible >physics behind ZPE. Certainly does not signify near possibility >to construct and use ZPE generators. >If I am mistaken, please scan and send us (the relevant fragments of) >the text of that paper. > > >> http://www.padrak.com/ine/index.html >> http://www.newphys.se/elektromagnum/ >> http://zenergy.com/ >> >Sorry, all these sites display very marked features of >pseudoscience. Extraordinary claims of simple >devices generating kilowatts of "free energy" but >none of them repeatable by others than their designers. >Although one cannot dismiss altogether that some >of these ideas might one time prove to be viable >(though I personally doubt it), one certainly cannot >claim that we have already, or will have in near future, >ready-to-use "free energy" devices. >Show me either REPEATABLE experiments with sound >physical/theoretical explanations why they work, >or a company selling with profit the energy from >their "free energy" plant. >Then I will give the matter a second chance. >As yet, I see there only unsubstantiated claims >and a lot of outcry about "conspiracy" of scientists and >governments to suppress the activity of "free energists"... > > >> I'm no fool, I am a scientist, and I don't just accept any idea that >> comes along. Perhaps "professional" scientists are to "good" to >listen >> to us amatuers? Amatuers flew first, built phones first, TV's, etc. >> Listen to us more. >> >I will listen when they deliver. > >Personally, I think you waste your time being too excited >and preoccupied by unsubstantiated claims of pseudoscientists. >You would made better use of your enthusiasm and intelligence >learning some more hard science (though it is sometimes hard on >gray matter, I know... ;-). > >It is for your decision, though. > >With best & friendly wishes > >-- Zenon > I fear I have to agree, though I don't automatically discount anything new and unusual, the lack of repeatability appears to be a real problem. Lets try to move on with known sources, and see where we go. Also with best and friendly wishes Jim From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 14:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1438" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "15:44:32" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "31" "starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA20793 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:44:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA20758 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:44:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.85]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA08008 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 17:44:47 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CFF1CF.2D0@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1437 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:44:32 -0700 I did not say I believed everything in those web pages. Some of these so called "Contactees" are about the weirdest people around. I'm currently having to contend with two groups: A: So called "pseudoscientists", who believe every crazy idea that comes along B: So called "hard scientists", who refuse to listen to facts that are unusual or hard to accept. Both groups are wrong. We need to have conclusive proof of theory before accepting it, but the scientific community needs to listen to new ideas and try them. I really don't care if it violates physics, as several things have before, and we use them today. The scientific community has become hotheaded in thinking we know almost everything there is to know. We don't know 1/1000th of what we think we know. I suppose this is human nature. I wonder why no one is cut down when bringing in a concept like "cellular universe" or Lorentz contraction, (neither of which has been proven, which violates everything said here), but when I bring up a concept, I'm instantly shot down with a barrage of messages whose basic line is: don't bring up something you can't prove. If you want some example of commonly accepted science that has never been proved, e-mail me. There's something not right here if unproven ideas invented by proffesionals are accepted, but amatuer's ideas are canned. Kyle Mcallister P.S.: I'm not taking this personally, but speaking in the name of science. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 15:24 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3646" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "15:24:32" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "66" "starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA04777 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:24:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA04736 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:24:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA05975; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:23:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA11340; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:24:32 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707182224.PAA11340@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33CFF1CF.2D0@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33CFF1CF.2D0@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 3645 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:24:32 -0700 kyle writes: > I did not say I believed everything in those web pages. Some of these so > called "Contactees" are about the weirdest people around. > > I'm currently having to contend with two groups: > A: So called "pseudoscientists", who believe every crazy idea that comes > along > B: So called "hard scientists", who refuse to listen to facts that are > unusual or hard to accept. > > Both groups are wrong. We need to have conclusive proof of theory before > accepting it, but the scientific community needs to listen to new ideas > and try them. I really don't care if it violates physics, as several > things have before, and we use them today. The scientific community has > become hotheaded in thinking we know almost everything there is to know. > We don't know 1/1000th of what we think we know. I suppose this is human > nature. Your conception of a "hard scientist" is based entirely on your stereotypes, not on the way that scientists act. I listen to facts when people actually present them. But your continual attempt to present unsubstantiated, pseudoscientific concepts as "fact" are what I argue against. I don't listen to a lot of your "facts" because you all too often don't present any. Historically the burden of proof for a new, radical theory is on the presenter of the theory. More wrong and untenable ideas come along than anyone can hope to test. You can't expect instant acceptance of something that doesn't fit with what we already know or think we know. You may find that reluctance galling, but it's exactly that reluctance to accept ideas without proof that makes science work at all. > I wonder why no one is cut down when bringing in a concept like > "cellular universe" or Lorentz contraction, (neither of which has been > proven, which violates everything said here), but when I bring up a > concept, I'm instantly shot down with a barrage of messages > whose basic line is: don't bring up something you can't prove. If you > want some example of commonly accepted science that has never been > proved, e-mail me. There's something not right here if unproven ideas > invented by proffesionals are accepted, but amatuer's ideas are canned. The cellular-automata model of the universe was just plain silly, and not even the participants were arguing its relevance to the real topic of this mailing list, which is designing working starships. Claiming that the Lorentz contraction is unproven is just plain wrong and shows your ignorance. There are two things to remember about the Lorentz Contraction: First, the Lorentz contraction is something you measure, not something you see. The finite speed of light combined with relativistic contraction of frame coordinates produces the visual appearance of rotation (as well as some other distortion) rather than simple compression along the direction of motion. Second, as has been pointed out repeatedly, we do observe astrophysical phenomena involving relativistic velocities, and if Lorentz contraction of frame coordinates didn't happen, they wouldn't look the way they do. Lorentz contraction is even observable by the distortions it creates in the electromagnetic fields of particles accelerated to near lightspeed; if it didn't happen, then particle accelerators wouldn't work either. You're going to have to find a better example of something that you claim the experts are just making up if you want to make that point. > P.S.: I'm not taking this personally, but speaking in the name of > science. If you're going to speak in the name of science, then please do a better job of understanding how it works. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 15:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["583" "Fri" "18" "July" "1997" "16:44:33" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "13" "starship-design: Dare we walk in their footsteps?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA10616 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:44:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA10587 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:44:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-72.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.72]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA11176 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:44:46 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33CFFFE0.2413@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 582 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Dare we walk in their footsteps? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:44:33 -0700 NASA's Interstellar flight symoposium seemed to listen to ZPE/FTL ideas (many of which come up with by amatuers). If we are going to attempt to design starships, then we need to follow their example. If we don't have the engineering knowhow, guess. Contact Marc G. Millis if you'd like to read their analysis of the situation. If we dare walk in their footsteps, then we should listen to theory. If its good enough for them its good enough for us. Kyle Mcallister P.S.: I may be unresponsive for awhile, as hurricane Danny is causing trouble down here with power and phone lines. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 18 21:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1053" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "00:34:21" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "31" "Re: starship-design: I'm a new member" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA07403 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:34:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA07391 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:34:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA08401; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 00:34:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970719003420_1961341560@emout19.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1052 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: I'm a new member Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 00:34:21 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/17/97 12:49:29 AM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >Hello everyone, > > I'm a mechanical engineer, and found your web site. Absolutely >fascinating! Will someone please help me get up to speed on whats >happening. I love the idea of instellar flight, and am glad to be part >of a serious discussion. > > Thanks. > Jim Clem, BSE > jimaclem@juno.com Welcome to the group! We range from engineers, physics students/researchers, to anyone with a e-mail account. After we arghued out the design ideas illistrated in the site (Hey Dave I just noticed you've been uploading my new draft stuff onto Sunsite! Cool!!) we got quite for a while. (Without any new technology/physics breakthroughs thats abouit as good as we could think of.) But at the moment the idea of exotic (semi-unknown) power sources and physics tricks has been geting a lot of discusion. Such as Warp drives of zero point energy. (The down side is we can realisticly design anything using such nebulous concepts. Welcome to the group. Kelly Starks From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 04:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["608" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "13:42:29" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "22" "starship-design: Re: New discussion" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA20563 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 04:47:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA20554 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 04:47:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-013.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wpXzX-000FIJC; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 13:48:03 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 607 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: New discussion Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 13:42:29 +0100 Hi Jim, You touched the subject beaming (of either a probe or the starship itself). I'd like you to read a rough summary of all the problems that this group has come up with so far. You should be able to find it here: http://www1.tip.nl/~t596675/sd/beaming/beam.html The document is still needs a lot of polishing, so if you find mistakes, oddities let me know. I'm not trying to shut you down here, but think it would be easier for yourself to know most of the "facts" before you make up your mind. I hope you have many questions afterwards, which will help me making that document better. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 12:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2196" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "15:06:21" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "50" "Re: starship-design: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA00074 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:06:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout11.mail.aol.com (emout11.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.26]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA00061 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:06:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout11.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA18035; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970719150620_1512126400@emout11.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2195 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Aliens Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:21 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/18/97 8:56:25 AM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >> >> Life in a gas giant is possible, but it would have to survive drifting in the >> updrafts and stuff. I'ld guess technology would be pretty much a no go. > >Actually, Timothy showed me that technology wouldn't be much of a >problem (using materials in atmosphere, dead bodies broken down for >materials, etc.) Its my guess that spacetravel (probably between planet >and moons) would be developed early, with other tech falling below, but >not impossible. After all, flight would have already been established. >Spacetravel to nearby moons would provide other resources that were >scarce in the jovian planets atmosphere. On the contrary. Floats can't carry much. You can't work metal without a forge or way to melt and carry the metal. No ceramics. Your kind of stuck with gases and remains of other life forms or debries. The complex heavy materials from metals, bricks, glass, etc needed for technology, especialy high energy technology, would be unavalible. Worse, if you could get some, you'ld have to drop them to keep from geting draged down. >> The moons around gas giants don't have to be earth sized. As a mater of fact >> the two likelyest areas in our solar system for life are Titan and Europa >> The later having liquid water oceans, the former very complex organic soup. >> >True. I was thinking of earth-like life. The fact of the matter is, life >is probably very diverse and of very wide variety. Does anyone have any >ideas on Silicon, Boron, or others as possible base chemicals for life? >Perhaps on freezing planets ammonia could replace water. > >Kyle Mcallister How earth like do you want? MOst of earth ecology is pretty alien by our standards (Hint: only a tiny fraction of earth biosphere is part of our photo synthisis based ecosphere.) The stuff swiming in Europas oceans could be pretty big and complex. Could be similar to our deap ocean life. As to exotic chemistries (silicon, boron, etc..) they don't seem to be that active in basic chemister, or interstellar space compared to carbon bases componds. So they might be very rare. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 12:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2472" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "15:06:28" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "48" "Re: starship-design: New discussion" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA00143 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:07:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA00125 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:06:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA21880; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:28 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970719150624_176262976@emout13.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2471 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: New discussion Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:28 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/18/97 8:29:10 PM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >Okay, > > Since my wild-haired ideas have been thoroughly picked at, I'll >go to another subject, power for the Argosey, M.A.R.S. concepts. It is >stated in those documents that power on the order of 10^18 watts, or >10^15 kilowatts will be required to drive a heavy sail-craft. Here's an >idea for getting that energy. If you note the document on carbonaceous >chondrite asteroids, you will find that those appear to have a silicate >content of some 83 %. If we mine these and use this material to build >solar panels, LARGE panels, and place them orbiting the sun at about the >orbit of Venus, we can get approximately 1 kilowatt for 3 m^2 of panel, >assuming a final conversion rate of 10%. Thus one square kilometer of >panel will generate approximately 3 * 10^5 kilowatts. Placing these at >the distance of Mercury will generate some 9 * 10^5 kilowatts. Lets >assume that efficiency improvements will allow this to approximately >double, giving some 2 * 10^6 kilowatts. 10^15 kilowatts now can be >produced with some 1,000,000,000 square kilometers of panels, orbiting at >the same distance as Mercury. (Yep, those numbers seem to be right). >This gives a disk some 36,000 kilometers in diameter!!!!! Just trying to >start a dialog on this problem, as this seems the best and quickest way >to get probes out there. > >Jim Clem Excelent topic change!! Also important for my fuel/sail configuration. Yes, if you assume the microwave generators are a fleet of large solar power sats (like those proposed in O'Neils space colonization concepts), each phase linked together during transmition, with each platform about 10 x 100 kilometers. So with about a thousand sqaure kilometers per platform. 2 * 10^6 kilowatts of power per square kilometer of collector at Mercuryvill distance from the sun. Thats 2 * 10^9 kilowatts of power per platform (about 1,000 times the power output of a standard comercial power plant). So you need a 5 million platform power array to produce the the10^15 kilowatts needed to boost these ships out of Sol space. If these things cost about as much per kilowatt as curren big power plants (about a billion dollars per 10,000 kilowatts I think). The total bill would be in the $ 10^18 range. Obviously we need a way to drasticly reduce the cost of power production to get these guys up to speed, or look for a more cost effective launcher system. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 12:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2240" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "15:06:14" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "110" "starship-design: Re: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA00176 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:07:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA00029; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:06:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA29427; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:14 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970719150614_-324844480@emout07.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2239 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu cc: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nlstarship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:14 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/18/97 7:16:33 AM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >>>Kelly, > >>> > >>>>>Immune systems usually see almost every non-self organism as > >>dangerous. I > >>>>>wouldn't think that it doesn't matter much whether the non-self > >>organism > >>>>>comes from space or Earth. > >>>>>In some cases the body even starts killing something of itself, > >>this is > >>>>>called an auto-immune disease. > >>>> > >>>>Immune systems arn't that good at detecting, much less combating, > >>'any' > >>>>non-self organism. They are best at detecting and defeating things > >>that > >>the > >>>>organism routinly is attacked by. Alien micro life would not be > >>something > >>>>were 'tuned' to fight or look for. > >>> > >>>As far as I know they are quite good at detecting, only finding the > >>>"antidote" before it is too late can be a problem. However > >>antibiotics > >>>usually can help quite a lot. > >> > >>You can't use an antibiotic on alien microbes. They work by suttle > >>disruption of celular chemistry. I.E. something that will kill them, > >>but not > >>us. > >> > >>>And even if we were not immune to alien bacteria, would we be able to > >>spot > >>>it? Likely there are more Earthly bacteria that kill people than > >>Space > >>bacteria. > >> > >>No way to know. Can't even know anything basic about their celular > >>construction or chemistry. > >> > > > >Just a thought to consider folks. All living organisms on this planet, > >including viruses have DNA and RNA constructed from the same four > >proteins, adenine, cytosine, guanine and tyrosine. (And I do mean ALL > >life forms on this planet, from viruses to trees to us). The chances > >that an alien microbe, or anything else, would use these same proteins > >seem rather small, thus rendering them and us relatively harmless to each > >other since we cant read each other's cellular codes. > > > >Jim The problem with that common misundarstanding is that most deseases and infections don't involve interaction with the organisms genetics. Only viruse s do. Bacteria, fungi, parasites, etc just need compatable pretean structures (very simple and common in nature) and an environment that isn't leathal enough to kill them quickly. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 12:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["6072" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "15:06:36" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "144" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA00202 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:07:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout17.mail.aol.com (emout17.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.43]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA00190 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:07:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout17.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA19959; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:36 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970719150631_-459072192@emout17.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 6071 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:36 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/18/97 3:58:51 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >>>As far as I know they are quite good at detecting, only finding the >>>"antidote" before it is too late can be a problem. However antibiotics >>>usually can help quite a lot. >> >>You can't use an antibiotic on alien microbes. They work by suttle >>disruption of celular chemistry. I.E. something that will kill them, but not >>us. > >Well, these chemicals make certain important biological chemical reactions >impossible. Unless the alien bacteria use very different ways to stay alive, >they may not be influenced. This is possible, but likely means that the >bacteria cannot survive in the climate of our body (which provides only >chemicals that are in a specific biological cycle that needs the climate of >our body). Actually they are tuned to disrupt certian key reactions in the microbe that are critical to them and unused in us. Virtually nothing is leathal or healthy to all organisms here. Owls can eat cyanide without effect. Dogs can be poisoned by chocolate. Some bacteria are vulnerable to some antibiotics, not to others. >>>And even if we were not immune to alien bacteria, would we be able to spot >>>it? Likely there are more Earthly bacteria that kill people than Space >>>bacteria. >> >>No way to know. Can't even know anything basic about their celular >>construction or chemistry. > >Well of course we can't be sure about their chemistry, but in my discussions >I assumed that they where based on DNA like we. If not, than all bets (from >me) are off. I know too little about the possible chemical reaction-cycles >in other systems. Not all life forms here do use DNA. Even those that do have very strange variations of chemical and physical variations and tolerances. >>>Well, that's why I didn't mention it the other discussion :) >>> >>>To get back to the point: Why would alien bacteria survive better than Earth >>>bacteria? >> >>Each taken out of its eco-would tend to react radically. > >Yes.. they radically die. >We never hear about the millions of strange bacteria that don't survive >their visit to local cousins. Only the few that are stronger will leave a >noticable fingerprint. It's hard to make conclusions when you've seen only >one side of the story. One plauge is far more noticable then the deaths of thousands of microbes. >I'd think that one could easely research this question. Just dump a few >strange bacteria in a huge colony of "normal" bacteria and see what happens. >If the strange bacteria turn out to survive all the time, then indeed you >are right, but I strongly doubt that. My guess is that in most of the cases >the local bacteria will survive over the foreign bacteria. The locals are >usually much better adapted to the local climate (=temperature, chemicals, >enemies, friends). >I bet that only a few foreign bacteria will have a sufficiently high >evolution that they can prosper in a new environment. The problem is were not to interested in their lethality to microbes. Were ve ry intersted in their effects on macro-organisms (trees, birds, HUMANS, ...) and their effect on biospheres. >>So I expect earths microbes or vermine would be as deadly >>there as alien stuff would be here. Course the microbes are more hardy, so >>they should survive better. > >Huh, this seems to be a paradox. If our bacteria kill theirs, than that >would mean our bacteria are stronger. So then, how can their bacteria kill >ours when they meet here? Doesn't mean anything like that. Our bacteria here have to deal with organisms that they have been preying on for millions-billions of years. Their prey has adapted immune responces and other adaptations to resist them. Drop them in an alien ecology and the local life forms have great adaptations to fight the local microbes. None of which are correct for the alien earth microbes. Earth barteria and fungi can run rampant. The alien microbes have the same reaction here. NO one evolved the right tricks to fight them. >>>Which "cultures with magical technology" do you mean. I can't recall when WE >>>encountered them before. True other cultures did, but I thought they usually >>>believed in magic. >> >>We as in humans. Obviously the current dominent cultures are to recent. >>But the Japanise in the late 1800's to the abos walking out of the jungle >>today give plenty of data sources. > >Hmmm, didn't most of them believe in supernatural rather than in facts? Some did some didn't. Whats the point? Do you expect more sophisticated and educated cultures would be less capable of dealing with the unexpected? They are the ones that have to continuously deal with the unexpected. >>>Why then contact us and give us the data? Just for the fun to see what >>>happens? >> >>What else do they have to trade? Besides, exploreres usually have to give >>gifts to the primatives. Helps prevent becoming dinner. ;) >> >>Seriously thou. To them it would be the equivalent of tossing out a handfull >>of beeds. > >Kelly, I see where this discussion is going. We've dozens of these in our >private letters. We're likely not to agree about this question soon, our >"fundamentals" (=my ideals and your reality) are still far apart (though the >do come closer). > >>>What good is destroying your test subject if your only example? >> >>What good is exploring if you never take a look at anything? If you don't >>interact with the natives, you might as well stay home. > >Oh, you may interact with them, but they first have to grow to the fact that >they are not alone out there. Like I wrote you before, one can't force >people into new developments. > >Timothy Life always forces people into new developments. People NEVER pregrow into a solution before thrown into it. Lifes about dealing with the unexplained, unanticipated problems you were sure could never happen to you. Why do you assume cultures and their citizens are so fragile and weak? Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 12:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["409" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "15:19:55" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "15" "Re: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA03303 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:20:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout08.mail.aol.com (emout08.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.23]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA03286; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:20:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout08.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA02607; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:19:55 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970719150624_-56425664@emout08.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 408 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu cc: bakelaar@injersey.comstarship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: antimatter fountain: popsci article Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:19:55 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/18/97 7:16:36 AM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >Fascinating. This raises my hopes for finding a simple, relatively > >inexpensive way to generate antimatter for our own use. Perhaps nuclear > >reactions in the presence of an artificial hypermass? HMMMM!! :) Actually we can generate anti mater easier than that. Its just to expensive to make the fuel very usaful or common. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 13:19 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2140" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "15:17:12" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "36" "RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA15340 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 13:19:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA15325 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 13:19:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p5.gnt.com [204.49.68.210]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA30872 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:19:52 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9457.33F6A900@x2p5.gnt.com>; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:19:51 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9457.33F6A900@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id NAA15329 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2139 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:17:12 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: jimaclem@juno.com [SMTP:jimaclem@juno.com] Sent: Friday, July 18, 1997 8:18 AM To: KellySt@aol.com Cc: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl; starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Just a thought to consider folks. All living organisms on this planet, including viruses have DNA and RNA constructed from the same four proteins, adenine, cytosine, guanine and tyrosine. (And I do mean ALL life forms on this planet, from viruses to trees to us). The chances that an alien microbe, or anything else, would use these same proteins seem rather small, thus rendering them and us relatively harmless to each other since we cant read each other's cellular codes. Jim, Sorry, but that reasoning won't wash. Using the ecology of THIS planet as a basis for the behavior of organisms from another ecology is like trying to determine what color light is with a yard stick - you can describe the color in terms that are producible with a yard stick, but you can't measure light with the yard stick. While it is certainly possible or even likely that non-terrestrial organisms which are based upon different proteins would find it difficult or impossible to infect a terrestrial host, that does NOT mean that they couldn't KILL a terrestrial organism. The infectious attempt itself may kill both organisms. From the point of vew of the victim it really doesn't matter. Dead is still dead. I also think that it is likely that non terrestrial organisms WILL be based on the same proteins, they have been found in interstellar dust clouds using spectroscopic analysis. There is therefore a significant chance that there will be RNA/DNA based life out there which WILL find us tasty. L. Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Long experience has taught me not to believe in the limitations indicated by purely theoretical considerations. These - as we well know - are based on insufficient knowledge of all the relevant factors." Guglielmo Marconi From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 14:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2889" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "15:38:09" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "39" "RE: starship-design: New discussion" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA24953 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 14:06:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA24941 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 14:06:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p5.gnt.com [204.49.68.210]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA00504 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 16:06:14 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC945D.ACCE4580@x2p5.gnt.com>; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 16:06:11 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC945D.ACCE4580@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id OAA24943 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2888 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: New discussion Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:38:09 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: jimaclem@juno.com [SMTP:jimaclem@juno.com] Sent: Friday, July 18, 1997 1:49 PM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: New discussion Okay, Since my wild-haired ideas have been thoroughly picked at, I'll go to another subject, power for the Argosey, M.A.R.S. concepts. It is stated in those documents that power on the order of 10^18 watts, or 10^15 kilowatts will be required to drive a heavy sail-craft. Here's an idea for getting that energy. If you note the document on carbonaceous chondrite asteroids, you will find that those appear to have a silicate content of some 83 %. If we mine these and use this material to build solar panels, LARGE panels, and place them orbiting the sun at about the orbit of Venus, we can get approximately 1 kilowatt for 3 m^2 of panel, assuming a final conversion rate of 10%. Thus one square kilometer of panel will generate approximately 3 * 10^5 kilowatts. Placing these at the distance of Mercury will generate some 9 * 10^5 kilowatts. Lets assume that efficiency improvements will allow this to approximately double, giving some 2 * 10^6 kilowatts. 10^15 kilowatts now can be produced with some 1,000,000,000 square kilometers of panels, orbiting at the same distance as Mercury. (Yep, those numbers seem to be right). This gives a disk some 36,000 kilometers in diameter!!!!! Just trying to start a dialog on this problem, as this seems the best and quickest way to get probes out there. Jim Clem Jim, That is a pretty good idea. However as an engineer, I'm sure that you are familiar with conversion efficiency. Sometime ago I mentioned an old article I read on a solar powered laser that was based on principles of geometry - in other words it was mechanical, a trick of mirrors. I believe it was in Scientific American, but I'm not sure. (If anyone out there is near a library with archives, please look. I'm in a backwater here, the nearest decent library is almost a hundred miles.) Anyway, it would be very simple to set up mass production of such a device to kick out millions of these things automatically. The hardest part would be the control circuitry to keep them aimed at the same approximate point in space. Since it would be so low tech, we could send an advance probe to build an array at the other end to improve the flight times of subsequent colonization ships. Envision a small Starwisp type of probe with a ten pound payload of nanobots whose sole purpose would be to convert an asteroid belt into solar pumped lasers and control machinery. It might take it fifty years to get there and another fifty years to build the infrastructure, but after it was built we could put a M.A.R.S. or sail type ship up to near light speed quickly and then decelerate it at the other end without resorting to complicated magnetic loop braking, etc. L. Parker From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 15:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["557" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "16:28:24" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "11" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA13667 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:28:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA13658 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:28:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-112.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-112.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.112]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA12032 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 18:28:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D14D97.6F54@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BC9457.33F6A900@x2p5.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 556 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 16:28:24 -0700 L. Parker wrote: > > Sorry, but that reasoning won't wash. Using the ecology of THIS planet as a basis for the behavior of organisms from another ecology is like trying to determine what color light is with a yard stick - you can describe the color in terms that are producible with a yard stick, but you can't measure light with the yard stick. I pretty much agree, but one note as a bit of humor: If you can see small enough, you CAN measure color with a yard stick! (assuming the stick is divided into small enough units)(angstroms) Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 16:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["162" "Sun" "20" "July" "1997" "01:22:58" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "9" "starship-design: Solar pumped lasers" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA24809 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 16:28:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA24800 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 16:28:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-029.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wpivN-000FSTC; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 01:28:29 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 161 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Solar pumped lasers Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 01:22:58 +0100 Hi all, For solar pumped lasers check out: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/consolar/SunDaySymp/Yogev/Quantum4.html (Try also some of the other links on this site) From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 19:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["931" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "22:04:50" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "27" "Re: starship-design: Dare we walk in their footsteps?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA25139 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:02:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA25130 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:02:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id W^E27520; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:02:27 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970719.220450.11398.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <33CFFFE0.2413@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-19,23-25 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 930 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Dare we walk in their footsteps? Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:04:50 -0400 On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:44:33 -0700 kyle writes: >NASA's Interstellar flight symoposium seemed to listen to ZPE/FTL >ideas >(many of which come up with by amatuers). If we are going to attempt >to >design starships, then we need to follow their example. If we don't >have >the engineering knowhow, guess. Contact Marc G. Millis if you'd like >to >read their analysis of the situation. If we dare walk in their >footsteps, then we should listen to theory. If its good enough for >them >its good enough for us. > >Kyle Mcallister > >P.S.: I may be unresponsive for awhile, as hurricane Danny is causing >trouble down here with power and phone lines. > Well, I'll say this about NASA. I honestly have a hard time paying serious attention to an agency that uses a Rolls Royce to move its couch, i.e., space shuttle to launch communication satellites. None the less, I will look up their analysis. Jim From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 19:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["818" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "22:21:59" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "38" "starship-design: Re: New discussion" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA27925 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:20:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA27900 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:19:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id WdX27520; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:19:08 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970719.222200.11398.1.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-36 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 817 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: New discussion Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:21:59 -0400 On Sat, 19 Jul 1997 13:42:29 +0100 TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) writes: > >Hi Jim, > >You touched the subject beaming (of either a probe or the starship >itself). >I'd like you to read a rough summary of all the problems that this >group has >come up with so far. > >You should be able to find it here: > >http://www1.tip.nl/~t596675/sd/beaming/beam.html > >The document is still needs a lot of polishing, so if you find >mistakes, >oddities let me know. thanks, I will check this out. >I'm not trying to shut you down here, but think it would be easier for >yourself to know most of the "facts" before you make up your mind. >I hope you have many questions afterwards, which will help me making >that >document better. > >Timothy > > Good, point, I'll keep this in mind. Thanks. Jim From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 19:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["301" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "22:44:43" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "16" "Re: starship-design: Solar pumped lasers" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA01334 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:42:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01320 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:42:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id WmS27520; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:42:03 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970719.224444.9134.1.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-14 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 300 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Solar pumped lasers Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:44:43 -0400 On Sun, 20 Jul 1997 01:22:58 +0100 TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) writes: >Hi all, > >For solar pumped lasers check out: > >http://www.weizmann.ac.il/consolar/SunDaySymp/Yogev/Quantum4.html > >(Try also some of the other links on this site) > > Thanks, I'll check this out. Jim From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 19:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3197" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "22:39:28" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "74" "Re: starship-design: New discussion" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA01564 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:44:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01516 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:44:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id WmR27520; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:42:03 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970719.224444.9134.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <01BC945D.ACCE4580@x2p5.gnt.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-70,72 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3196 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: New discussion Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:39:28 -0400 On Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:38:09 -0500 "L. Parker" writes: >-----Original Message----- >From: jimaclem@juno.com [SMTP:jimaclem@juno.com] >Sent: Friday, July 18, 1997 1:49 PM >To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu >Subject: starship-design: New discussion > >Okay, > > Since my wild-haired ideas have been thoroughly picked at, >I'll >go to another subject, power for the Argosey, M.A.R.S. concepts. It >is >stated in those documents that power on the order of 10^18 watts, or >10^15 kilowatts will be required to drive a heavy sail-craft. Here's >an >idea for getting that energy. If you note the document on >carbonaceous >chondrite asteroids, you will find that those appear to have a >silicate >content of some 83 %. If we mine these and use this material to build >solar panels, LARGE panels, and place them orbiting the sun at about >the >orbit of Venus, we can get approximately 1 kilowatt for 3 m^2 of >panel, >assuming a final conversion rate of 10%. Thus one square kilometer of >panel will generate approximately 3 * 10^5 kilowatts. Placing these >at >the distance of Mercury will generate some 9 * 10^5 kilowatts. Lets >assume that efficiency improvements will allow this to approximately >double, giving some 2 * 10^6 kilowatts. 10^15 kilowatts now can be >produced with some 1,000,000,000 square kilometers of panels, orbiting >at >the same distance as Mercury. (Yep, those numbers seem to be right). >This gives a disk some 36,000 kilometers in diameter!!!!! Just trying >to >start a dialog on this problem, as this seems the best and quickest >way >to get probes out there. > >Jim Clem > > >Jim, > >That is a pretty good idea. However as an engineer, I'm sure that you >are familiar with conversion efficiency. Sometime ago I mentioned an >old article I read on a solar powered laser that was based on >principles of geometry - in other words it was mechanical, a trick of >mirrors. I believe it was in Scientific American, but I'm not sure. >(If anyone out there is near a library with archives, please look. I'm >in a backwater here, the nearest decent library is almost a hundred >miles.) Anyway, it would be very simple to set up mass production of >such a device to kick out millions of these things automatically. The >hardest part would be the control circuitry to keep them aimed at the >same approximate point in space. > >Since it would be so low tech, we could send an advance probe to build >an array at the other end to improve the flight times of subsequent >colonization ships. Envision a small Starwisp type of probe with a ten >pound payload of nanobots whose sole purpose would be to convert an >asteroid belt into solar pumped lasers and control machinery. It might >take it fifty years to get there and another fifty years to build the >infrastructure, but after it was built we could put a M.A.R.S. or sail >type ship up to near light speed quickly and then decelerate it at the >other end without resorting to complicated magnetic loop braking, etc. > >L. Parker > You're right, I am familiar with conversion efficiency, pretty dismal most of the time. I'll check the pumped laser concept out. From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 20:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2514" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "19:04:43" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "14" "starship-design: Solar Pumped Laser" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA05978 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 20:07:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA05968 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 20:07:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA19349 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:07:24 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9490.205D05E0@x2p5.gnt.com>; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:07:19 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9490.205D05E0@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id UAA05969 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2513 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Solar Pumped Laser Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:04:43 -0500 NREL Researchers Use Sunlight to Power Laser For Information Contact: Mike Coe (303) 275-4085 Golden, Colo., December 14, 1995 -- Commercial prospects for solar-powered lasers recently got a little brighter when researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the University of Chicago powered a laser with concentrated sunlight instead of electricity. The solar laser works in the same manner as other lasers except it uses concentrated sunlight for power instead of electricity. The sunlight was supplied by NREL s High Flux Solar Furnace, a facility that uses a series of mirrors to concentrate sunlight into an intense, focused beam that reaches concentrations of up to 50,000 suns. To create the solar laser, a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) laser crystal was mounted at the target of a specially designed secondary concentrator. The crystal and secondary concentrator were then placed at the focal point of the primary concentrator. When sunlight was added, this concave-convex mirror system gave birth to a solar laser. The laser had a peak power output of 57 watts. Most conventional industrial lasers have power outputs of several hundred watts. Our test results prove that a solar-pumped laser can achieve high powers with reasonable efficiency, said NREL s Allan Lewandowski. We achieved the highest reported efficiency for a solar-pumped laser operating at this power level. Lasers are very energy intensive, consuming much more energy than they produce. Lasers powered by electricity operate at about 1-2 percent efficiency, meaning they require 10 kilowatts of energy to produce 100 to 200 watt lasers. NREL s solar laser has an efficiency of almost 1 percent. The efficiency is expected to improve as researchers refine and optimize the system. NREL researchers believe that solar lasers are potentially more efficient than traditional lasers. NREL and University of Chicago researchers developed the secondary concentrator used for the solar laser as part of a collaborative effort. While early results are promising, the technology still requires significant development before it is viable for commercial uses. Because atmospheric conditions such as variable cloud cover significantly influence laser performance, space-based applications (space communication and space power systems) may hold the most promise for solar lasers. Other potential applications include terrestrial materials processing and photochemistry. From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 20:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4044" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "19:14:26" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "19" "starship-design: Solar Pumped Lasers" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA06000 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 20:07:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA05990 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 20:07:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA19365 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:07:34 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9490.281FB7A0@x2p5.gnt.com>; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 22:07:32 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9490.281FB7A0@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id UAA05992 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4043 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Solar Pumped Lasers Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:14:26 -0500 When I said this was low tech, I had no idea.... The Passive Solar Laser Using the basics of laser physics, we concluded that a laser could in theory be powered by means other than a flashlamp or another laser. While sunlight might not initially seem to be a source of power that could be focused into a beam equivalent to the concentrated flashes of a flashlamp reflected from one focus of an ellipse to another, or another laser, there is, theoretically, a way to harness enough power to excite the dye enough to get a laser beam. This beam will not be tunable, and in fact will cover several wavelenghts at once, and be the same color (or close to) the dye itself. Because the sun's rays come from so far away, the ones that reach the earth are practically parallel. Of course they are not truly parallel, coming from a incoherent source, but the angle of divergence is negligible for our purposes. Assuming that the rays are parallel, they can be focused on a single line using a parabolic, reflective trough. diag. 1 This trough, if it has enough surface area, should concentrate enough light to cause excitation, and stimulate the emission of photons. The dye tube (optical cavity) will be essentially the same in this project as in the tunable, flashlamp-powered laser. The only difference will be that the dye will not be circulated throught the solar laser, as it probably will not be powerful enough to require constant renewal of the dye. Trough Construction 1.) Trace out a parabola on a piece of poster-board, using a focus point and a directrix, and plotting all of the points equidistant from both. This parabola should be at least 1-2 feet in width, and should be fairly shallow, to make construction easier. (As long as it is parabolic, the actual equation of the parabola will not matter, it will focus light onto the focus regardless.) 2.) Use the poster-board parabola as a guide to cut out at least two, probably three copies of it out of 3/4" plywood. These will give the trough its shape, and everything else is built around them, so make sure they are as accurate as possible. 3.) Bend 1/4" masonite around the outside of the parabolas and screw or nail it into place. Form a trough, with one parabola at each end. The masonite will naturally want to bow outward in the middle section of the trough, but a center parabolic support, and strips of 1"x2" planking on the outside, nailed or screwed through the masonite and into the parabolas, should suffice to keep the trough parabolic enough, depending upon its length. The length of the trough should be at least 2'. 4.) Drill 1/4" holes at the focus of each parabola to hold the dye tube. 5.) For the reflective surface, use aluminum flashing, polished if possible (glass cleaner should suffice). Attach it with brads nailed through the masonite and into the 1"x2" supports. 6.) Build a base for the trough that will allow it to stand on flat ground, and be tilted towards the sun. There are many ways this base can be cnostructed, but two things are necessary. It must be able to be held in place at any angle from the ground along both the length and width of the trough. (Make it tilt from side to side, and up and down.) Testing To ensure that the parabola is reflecting correctly, the laser should be tested at various stages during its construction. Once the flashing has been attached, and the holes drilled at the focus, testing can begin. Using a 1/4" dowel in place of the dye tube, another laser can be used to test specific points. Simply point the laser perpendicular to the face of the trough, and if the laser light is reflected exclusively onto the dowel rod, the laser is working correctly in that area. However, this method is limited, and once the base is constructed, and the laser can be placed perpendicular to the sun's rays, the entire surface can be tested at once. Use the dowel rod again to test here, and if it is working correctly, make your dye tube and fire away! (See Laser Basics for information on dye tube construction.) From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 19 20:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["835" "Sat" "19" "July" "1997" "23:13:47" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "25" "Re: starship-design: Aliens" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA06593 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 20:12:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA06568 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 20:11:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id XzE27520; Sat, 19 Jul 1997 23:11:21 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970719.231348.9134.2.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970719150620_1512126400@emout11.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-16,21-23 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 834 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Aliens Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 23:13:47 -0400 On Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:06:21 -0400 (EDT) KellySt@aol.com writes: > > > >On the contrary. Floats can't carry much. You can't work metal without >a >forge or way to melt and carry the metal. No ceramics. Your kind of >stuck >with gases and remains of other life forms or debries. The complex >heavy >materials from metals, bricks, glass, etc needed for technology, >especialy >high energy technology, would be unavalible. Worse, if you could get >some, >you'ld have to drop them to keep from geting draged down. > Actually, couldn't a sufficiently intelligent species develop a genetically engineered organism that metabolizes metal, then lays down that metal in layers, possibly with several different organisms working in concert to make complex systems? I know, my biology isn't what it should be, but its a thought. Jim From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 20 04:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4874" "Sun" "20" "July" "1997" "13:34:51" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "101" "Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA02897 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 04:40:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA02888 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 04:40:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-014.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wpuLj-000FmhC; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 13:40:27 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4873 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 13:34:51 +0100 >>Well, these chemicals make certain important biological chemical reactions >>impossible. Unless the alien bacteria use very different ways to stay alive, >>they may not be influenced. This is possible, but likely means that the >>bacteria cannot survive in the climate of our body (which provides only >>chemicals that are in a specific biological cycle that needs the climate of >>our body). > >Actually they are tuned to disrupt certian key reactions in the microbe that >are critical to them and unused in us. Virtually nothing is leathal or >healthy to all organisms here. Owls can eat cyanide without effect. Dogs >can be poisoned by chocolate. Some bacteria are vulnerable to some >antibiotics, not to others. We're not talking about multicellular organisms, we're talking about bacteria. Anything bigger than that should not be able to get trough or biosuit or missed by a biofilter. >>Well of course we can't be sure about their chemistry, but in my discussions >>I assumed that they where based on DNA like we. If not, than all bets (from >>me) are off. I know too little about the possible chemical reaction-cycles >>in other systems. > >Not all life forms here do use DNA. Even those that do have very strange >variations of chemical and physical variations and tolerances. Not all? Which life forms don't use DNA? Bacteria are like humans, they all have similar vulnerabilities. True, some are can much survive better than others, but these are exceptions. >>I'd think that one could easely research this question. Just dump a few >>strange bacteria in a huge colony of "normal" bacteria and see what happens. >>If the strange bacteria turn out to survive all the time, then indeed you >>are right, but I strongly doubt that. My guess is that in most of the cases >>the local bacteria will survive over the foreign bacteria. The locals are >>usually much better adapted to the local climate (=temperature, chemicals, >>enemies, friends). >>I bet that only a few foreign bacteria will have a sufficiently high >>evolution that they can prosper in a new environment. > >The problem is were not to interested in their lethality to microbes. Were >very intersted in their effects on macro-organisms (trees, birds, HUMANS, ...) >and their effect on biospheres. Well, I'd guess that a multicellular organism would have better protection against a bacteria than a single cell organism would. >>Huh, this seems to be a paradox. If our bacteria kill theirs, than that >>would mean our bacteria are stronger. So then, how can their bacteria kill >>ours when they meet here? > >Doesn't mean anything like that. Our bacteria here have to deal with >organisms that they have been preying on for millions-billions of years. > Their prey has adapted immune responces and other adaptations to resist >them. Drop them in an alien ecology and the local life forms have great >adaptations to fight the local microbes. None of which are correct for the >alien earth microbes. Earth barteria and fungi can run rampant. The alien >microbes have the same reaction here. NO one evolved the right tricks to >fight them. But in that case the old prey in the foreign environment would also not have adapted immune responces against his new enemies. So for that matter both hunter and prey are equal again, except that the hunters are in a huge mayority and in a known environment. >>>We as in humans. Obviously the current dominent cultures are to recent. >>>But the Japanise in the late 1800's to the abos walking out of the jungle >>>today give plenty of data sources. >> >>Hmmm, didn't most of them believe in supernatural rather than in facts? > >Some did some didn't. Whats the point? Do you expect more sophisticated and >educated cultures would be less capable of dealing with the unexpected? They >are the ones that have to continuously deal with the unexpected. I indeed suggest that cultures, that have based their world view on facts, may have more trouble with the unexpected, than cultures that have based their ideas on beliefs and magic. >>Oh, you may interact with them, but they first have to grow to the fact that >>they are not alone out there. Like I wrote you before, one can't force >>people into new developments. > >Life always forces people into new developments. People NEVER pregrow into a >solution before thrown into it. Lifes about dealing with the unexplained, >unanticipated problems you were sure could never happen to you. There's a big difference between being immersed in something completely unknown and dipping in something that looks familiar. The latter is what happens most of the times. The former usually is an exception and causes a lot of trouble to accept for a lot of people. (No Kyle, don't comment ;) >Why do you assume cultures and their citizens are so fragile and weak? Am I doing that? Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 20 08:43 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["233" "Sun" "20" "July" "1997" "10:18:01" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "14" "starship-design: NREL Researchers Use Sunlight to Power Laser" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA02731 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 08:43:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA02721 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 08:43:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p14.gnt.com [204.49.68.219]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA17471 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 10:43:38 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC94F9.C0815440@x2p5.gnt.com>; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 10:43:25 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC94F9.C0815440@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Length: 232 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: NREL Researchers Use Sunlight to Power Laser Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 10:18:01 -0500 Timothy, This one is a solar powered laser http://www.peddie.k12.nj.us/laser/splaser.htm Thes are solar pumped lasers http://hep.uchicago.edu/solar/laser.html http://syssrv9.nrel.gov/hot-stuff/press/solar.html Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 20 11:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["194" "Sun" "20" "July" "1997" "12:14:44" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "7" "starship-design: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA28074 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 11:15:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA28065 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 11:15:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-84.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-84.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.84]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA12400 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 14:15:02 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D263A3.4016@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 193 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: No comments Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 12:14:44 -0700 Do not worry, fellow starship designers. I will make little input from here on out. I have found another group that appreciates my input better. No offense to anyone. Regards, Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 20 12:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["86" "Sun" "20" "July" "1997" "13:16:01" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "4" "starship-design: C programs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA09399 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 12:16:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA09388 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 12:16:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-97.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-97.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.97]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA30878 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 15:16:15 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D27201.511A@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 85 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: C programs Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 13:16:01 -0700 Does anyone here know how to convert C programs to Basic or QBasic? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 20 12:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["294" "Sun" "20" "July" "1997" "21:42:20" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "12" "starship-design: Re: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA15911 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 12:47:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA15896 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 12:47:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-017.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wq1xT-000GtYC; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 21:47:55 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 293 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: No comments Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 21:42:20 +0100 Kyle, >Do not worry, fellow starship designers. I will make little input from >here on out. I have found another group that appreciates my input >better. No offense to anyone. Well, you owe us a message as soon as your magnetic monopole definately turns out to be a fake or a hit. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 20 13:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["663" "Sun" "20" "July" "1997" "14:20:19" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "19" "Re: starship-design: Re: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA22693 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 13:20:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA22683 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 13:20:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-97.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-77.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.77]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA29589 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 16:20:32 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D28112.3536@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 662 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: No comments Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 14:20:19 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > Kyle, > > >Do not worry, fellow starship designers. I will make little input from > >here on out. I have found another group that appreciates my input > >better. No offense to anyone. > > Well, you owe us a message as soon as your magnetic monopole definately > turns out to be a fake or a hit. > Since the magnetic lines aren't broken, I suppose its not a monopole. I preffer not to call it a fake, as that would imply that I tried to fool people, and make me look stupid. I simply call it a failed expiriment. It does put out all north fields (outside), but if this doesn't count as monopolar, I give up. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 20 14:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2282" "Sun" "20" "July" "1997" "17:07:22" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "49" "starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA02698 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 14:04:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA02688 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 14:04:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id RfX28198; Sun, 20 Jul 1997 17:04:02 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970720.170722.3526.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-4,7-8,12-13,16-17,21-22,26-27,36-37,40-41,45-47 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2281 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 17:07:22 -0400 Timothy, I looked at your page on beam propulsion, very interesting. Here are some comments on it. Anyone else, please chime in! 2a The beaming station very likely needs to be build on a moving/rotating object like a planet, moon or asteroid. Keeping the beam on track means the whole beaming station should be able to actively steer the beam. Well, if you use an asteroid, or a collection of them, it seems reasonable that any motion by them could be canceled out by simple thrusters, either chemical, nuclear, or some variation of a solar thermal engine. 5 Probably the smallest effect, the amount of dust may not be that much compared to the power that is needed. The beam itself will push away a lot of the dust so that the path is "smoothed" a bit. Probably true, however, has anyone considered the effects of erosion on the sail by dust, etc. when the vehicle reaches an appreciable fraction of c? If enough damage is done to the sail, it may well suffer a catastrophic failure, i.e., a large portion breaking off. 12b It would be preferable that the sail is at the Earth-side of the ship, this way the ship itself is not "shined" upon (and not heated). This also means the sail needs to push the starship which may be more difficult than the pull (parachute) method. Here we run into the problems of tension vs. compression members. Example, take a short length of wire, does'nt matter how long. Hang it up and add weight to the free end. This is tension, or pulling, stress. Now stand the wire on end and add weight to the top. This is compressive, or pushing stress. Try it if you like, but you can probably guess that the wire in compression will fail with less weight than the wire in tension. The end result is that compression members, like you're proposing, will be heavier than tension members needed to handle the same mass of vehicle. 18 Either the beaming station is build on a heavy soil (a moon/big asteroid) or it 'shines' also in the opposite direction of the target system. Actually, since the mass of the beaming station won't be negligible, simply placing positioning thrusters on it and using them occasionally should keep the station in position. Why spend energy, hard enough to come by anyway, beaming in another direction. Jim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 01:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["590" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "09:58:40" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "19" "Re: starship-design: Re: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id BAA12426 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 01:04:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id BAA12417 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 01:04:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-020.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqDS6-000GCuC; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:04:18 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 589 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: No comments Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 09:58:40 +0100 Kyle >>Well, you owe us a message as soon as your magnetic monopole definately >>turns out to be a fake or a hit. >> >Since the magnetic lines aren't broken, I suppose its not a monopole. I >preffer not to call it a fake, as that would imply that I tried to fool >people, and make me look stupid. I simply call it a failed expiriment. >It does put out all north fields (outside), but if this doesn't count as >monopolar, I give up. Doesn't sound like you at all... Oh, I wondered, you wrote that the other group appreciates your input better. What does that mean concretely? Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 02:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3582" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "11:23:32" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "73" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA07305 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 02:28:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA07235 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 02:28:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-020.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqEmC-000GG0C; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:29:08 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3581 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:23:32 +0100 Hello Jim, >2a The beaming station very likely needs to be build on a moving/rotating >object like a planet, moon or asteroid. Keeping the beam on track means >the whole beaming station should be able to actively steer the beam. > > Well, if you use an asteroid, or a collection of them, it seems >reasonable that any motion by them could be canceled out by simple >thrusters, either chemical, nuclear, or some variation of a solar thermal >engine. What I didn't include in the beaming-page was the reason for using a planet or asteroid. I believe the main goal was to have a sufficient mass, so that the reverse momentum of the beaming station would not push itself away at a significant rate. I never really did a calculation to figure out what the effect would be on a planet or asteroid. Now that I did, I'm a bit shocked, we're going to use about 1E26 Joule of total energy. With that energy you can give a mass similar to Earth a velocity of a few meters per second. >5 Probably the smallest effect, the amount of dust may not be that much >compared to the power that is needed. The beam itself will push away a >lot of the dust so that the path is "smoothed" a bit. > > Probably true, however, has anyone considered the effects of >erosion on the sail by dust, etc. when the vehicle reaches an appreciable >fraction of c? If enough damage is done to the sail, it may well suffer >a catastrophic failure, i.e., a large portion breaking off. Well, we know little about this subject. in fact so far we have not found a really satisfying solution for shielding. We have some solutions, but they are either crude or speculative. >12b It would be preferable that the sail is at the Earth-side of the >ship, this way the ship itself is not "shined" upon (and not heated). >This also means the sail needs to push the starship which may be more >difficult than the pull (parachute) method. > > Here we run into the problems of tension vs. compression members. > Example, take a short length of wire, does'nt matter how long. Hang it >up and add weight to the free end. This is tension, or pulling, stress. >Now stand the wire on end and add weight to the top. This is >compressive, or pushing stress. Try it if you like, but you can probably >guess that the wire in compression will fail with less weight than the >wire in tension. The end result is that compression members, like you're >proposing, will be heavier than tension members needed to handle the same >mass of vehicle. True, the parachute design would likely be easier and lighter. The mean reason for pointing out the above problem was that you'd realize that we needed some extra shielding. >18 Either the beaming station is build on a heavy soil (a moon/big >asteroid) or it 'shines' also in the opposite direction of the target >system. > > Actually, since the mass of the beaming station won't be >negligible, simply placing positioning thrusters on it and using them >occasionally should keep the station in position. Why spend energy, hard >enough to come by anyway, beaming in another direction. I'm not completely about what your question is. - Like with question 2a, I never before did a calculation to figure out what the effect of 1E26 Joule on a large body would be. It seems I've to change this. - Thrusters use mass, which indeed is more efficient than photons in making momentum. However to keep the design more simple I suggest to use lasers only. - If we like to keep the beaming station within our solar system, we need to build it on a large mass or we need to retro-beam it. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 07:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3102" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "10:31:15" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "90" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA20083 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 07:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA20074 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 07:30:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id K~R01437; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:28:40 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970721.103115.16374.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-32,34-42,44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58,60,62,64,66,68, 70,72,74,76,78-83,86-88 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3101 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:31:15 -0400 On Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:23:32 +0100 TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) writes: >>12b It would be preferable that the sail is at the Earth-side of the >>ship, this way the ship itself is not "shined" upon (and not heated). >>This also means the sail needs to push the starship which may be more >>difficult than the pull (parachute) method. >> >> Here we run into the problems of tension vs. compression >members. >> Example, take a short length of wire, doesn't matter how long. Hang >it >>up and add weight to the free end. This is tension, or pulling, >stress. >>Now stand the wire on end and add weight to the top. This is >>compressive, or pushing stress. Try it if you like, but you can >probably >>guess that the wire in compression will fail with less weight than >the >>wire in tension. The end result is that compression members, like >you're >>proposing, will be heavier than tension members needed to handle the >same >>mass of vehicle. > >True, the parachute design would likely be easier and lighter. The >mean >reason for pointing out the above problem was that you'd realize that >we >needed some extra shielding. > I thought of a simple solution to this a few hours after sending that message. 000 PAYLOAD----> 000 /\ 000 | DIRECTION OF TRAVEL 00 | 00 SAIL | SAIL ________________________________ | ________________________________ \ | / \ | / \ <-----TENSION | <-----Compression / \ MEMBER | Member / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / \ | / | Lighter than the compression member only idea, and only a little heavier than the tension only, especially since it should reduce the shielding problem. Jim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 07:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2452" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "16:49:16" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "66" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA25416 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 07:53:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA24203 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 07:49:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id QAA07291; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:49:16 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707211449.QAA07291@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2451 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, jimaclem@juno.com Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:49:16 +0200 (MET DST) > From: jimaclem@juno.com> > I thought of a simple solution to this a few hours after sending that > message. > > 000 > PAYLOAD----> 000 /\ > 000 | DIRECTION OF TRAVEL > 00 | > 00 > SAIL | SAIL > ________________________________ | ________________________________ > \ | / > \ | > / > \ <-----TENSION | <-----Compression > / > \ MEMBER | Member > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ | > / > \ > | / > \ > | / > \ | > / > \ | / > \ | / > | > > > Lighter than the compression member only idea, and only a little heavier > than the tension only, especially since it should reduce the shielding > problem. > > Jim > Your use of combined spaces and tabs for the ASCII art above, together with your (or list's?) mailer bad habit of automatically breaking longer lines made the construction above unreadable... Though I catched the general idea, please redraw the design (shorter lines, space-only character padding) to make it sneak undamaged through our too-intelligent mail software... -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 08:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3573" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "11:14:11" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "115" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA01145 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:15:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA01063 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:14:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id LTS01437; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:12:00 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970721.111411.12614.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707211449.QAA07291@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-58,60-95,97,99,101-109,111-113 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3572 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:14:11 -0400 On Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:49:16 +0200 (MET DST) Zenon Kulpa writes: >> From: jimaclem@juno.com> >> I thought of a simple solution to this a few hours after sending >that >> message. >> >> 000 >> PAYLOAD----> 000 /\ >> 000 | DIRECTION OF TRAVEL >> 00 | >> 00 >> SAIL | SAIL >> ________________________________ | >________________________________ >> \ | > / >> \ | > >> / >> \ <-----TENSION | <-----Compression >> / >> \ MEMBER | >Member >> / >> \ | > >> / >> \ | > >> / >> \ | > >> / >> \ | > >> / >> \ | > >> / >> \ | > >> / >> \ | > >> / >> \ | > >> / >> \ >| >> / >> \ > | >> / >> \ >| >> / >> \ > >> | / >> \ > >> | / >> \ | > >> / >> \ | / >> \ | / >> | >> >> >> Lighter than the compression member only idea, and only a little >heavier >> than the tension only, especially since it should reduce the >shielding >> problem. >> >> Jim >> >Your use of combined spaces and tabs for the ASCII art above, >together with your (or list's?) mailer bad habit of automatically >breaking longer lines made the construction above unreadable... >Though I catched the general idea, please redraw the design >(shorter lines, space-only character padding) to make it sneak >undamaged through our too-intelligent mail software... > >-- Zenon > Oops, sorry bout' that. Here goes again. payload --> OO compression mbr. || _________________ __________________ \ || / \ || / \ || / \ || / \ || / tension mbr. \ || / \ || / \ || / \ || / || Hope this is better. The sail pulls a column that passes through the sail, with the payload on top, away from the Earth side of the sail. Jim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 08:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["560" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "08:52:52" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "13" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA11921 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:53:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA11898 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:53:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA29446 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:51:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA20572; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:52:52 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707211552.IAA20572@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707211449.QAA07291@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> References: <199707211449.QAA07291@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 559 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:52:52 -0700 Zenon Kulpa writes: > Your use of combined spaces and tabs for the ASCII art above, > together with your (or list's?) mailer bad habit of automatically > breaking longer lines made the construction above unreadable... > Though I catched the general idea, please redraw the design > (shorter lines, space-only character padding) to make it sneak > undamaged through our too-intelligent mail software... Any formatting problems seen on this mailing list are those of the sender; neither sendmail nor majordomo does any reformatting of message bodies. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 09:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4016" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "17:43:34" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "95" "Re: starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA14493 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 09:00:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA14440 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 09:00:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id RAA07336; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 17:43:34 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707211543.RAA07336@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4015 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, stk@sunherald.infi.net Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 17:43:34 +0200 (MET DST) > From: kyle > > I did not say I believed everything in those web pages. Some of these so > called "Contactees" are about the weirdest people around. > > I'm currently having to contend with two groups: > A: So called "pseudoscientists", who believe every crazy idea > that comes along > B: So called "hard scientists", who refuse to listen to facts that are > unusual or hard to accept. > > Both groups are wrong. We need to have conclusive proof of theory before > accepting it, but the scientific community needs to listen to new ideas > and try them. I really don't care if it violates physics, as several > things have before, and we use them today. The scientific community has > become hotheaded in thinking we know almost everything there is to know. > We don't know 1/1000th of what we think we know. I suppose this is human > nature. > Of course I must agree (mostly...). However, as someone said, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Scientists making such claims do not cry about "conspiracy" if other scientists doubt in their claims and ask for more evidence. And then they work hard to provide that evidence and they withdraw their claim when hard evidence does not materialize, without vails of being "not listened to" or otherwise suppressed. This is how real science works. > I wonder why no one is cut down when bringing in a concept like > "cellular universe" or Lorentz contraction, (neither of which has been > proven, which violates everything said here), > Concerning "cellural universe" it was pure speculation of the "what if..." type, nobody discussing it claimed it to be at all sure and ready for use in designing starships or whatever. Such discussions on the speculative-hypothetical level are valuable, if only to open minds for wider space of possibilities, provided everybody understands them for what they are - just speculative-hypothetical thought experiments. Concerning Lorents contraction - see the answer by Steve. > but when I bring up a > concept, I'm instantly shot down with a barrage of messages > whose basic line is: don't bring up something you can't prove. > You are not simply "bringing up a concept". You are additionally claiming that is it sure, proven [here a few WWW links], working and ready to mount on a starship. And this certainly may be a little unnerving... > If you > want some example of commonly accepted science that has never been > proved, e-mail me. There's something not right here if unproven ideas > invented by proffesionals are accepted, but amatuer's ideas are canned. > The answer is simple - professionals, just because of their professionalism and experience, far more often than amateurs bring up ideas that are eventually proven to be valid. This of course does not mean - and nobody at this list said that - that amateur's ideas are certainly always wrong, just because they have been brought up by an amateur. But they deserve at least the same (or even larger) amount of doubt and requests for hard evidence as any others' ideas. Certainly, the holy fervor of their proponents is NOT evidence enough. Nobody (almost) listened to Wright brothers before their plane flied safely in the air several times. > Kyle Mcallister > > P.S.: I'm not taking this personally, but speaking in the name of science. > As it was remarked by Steve, become a scientist before you try to speak in the name of science. And I must warn you - it is a very tiresome and often unrewarding job. Generating great ideas is only a tiny part of it. 99.9% of science is painstaking testing and search for evidence (and error) - all too often ending with the "false!" answer... Are you ready for that toil, Kyle? Otherwise, you will be nothing more than an amateur pseudoscientist, generating tens of unsubstantiated ideas a minute (that is VERY easy) and crying about "conspiracies", suppression of thought by "hard scientists", and the like. The choice is yours. Best wishes, -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 09:05 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2042" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "18:04:05" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "50" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA15604 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 09:05:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA15593 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 09:05:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id SAA07363; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:04:05 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707211604.SAA07363@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2041 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:04:05 +0200 (MET DST) > From: jimaclem@juno.com > > Oops, sorry bout' that. Here goes again. > > payload --> OO > compression mbr. || > _________________ __________________ > \ || > / > \ || > / > \ || > / > \ || / > \ || / > tension mbr. \ || / > \ || / > \ || / > \ || / > || > > Hope this is better. The sail pulls a column that passes through the > sail, with the payload on top, away from the Earth side of the sail. > Sorry, did not work this time either. Did you compose the art using fixed font? If your mailer uses a proportional font, the effects would be just that, on any receiver's screen using different font than yours (e.g., on mine - the standard fixed font like Courier or Monospaced used by most mailers). And note also a strange line I have found in the header of your mail: > X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-58,60-95,97,99,101-109,111-113 Concerning the idea itself, I have doubts: - the central compression column must quite thick, hence heavy: the problem is not so much with compression strength as with bending of long (relative to width) objects compressed lengthwise (the effect is called "buckling" if I am not mistaken). - the construction will be rather unstable (like Wright brothers early planes, with their tail-first design): the central column wil tend to veer to the sides. The parachute design seems much better; the payload can be shielded from the beam by a small sail supported by correspondingly small truss structure. -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 10:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3715" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "18:57:51" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "101" "Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA07901 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:07:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA07876 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:07:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id SAA07406; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:57:51 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707211657.SAA07406@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3714 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:57:51 +0200 (MET DST) > From: kyle > > Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > > > Kyle, > > > > >Do not worry, fellow starship designers. I will make little input from > > >here on out. I have found another group that appreciates my input > > >better. No offense to anyone. > > > > Well, you owe us a message as soon as your magnetic monopole definately > > turns out to be a fake or a hit. > > > Since the magnetic lines aren't broken, I suppose its not a monopole. I > preffer not to call it a fake, as that would imply that I tried to fool > people, and make me look stupid. > I simply call it a failed expiriment. > OK, let us not call it a fake... > It does put out all north fields (outside), but if this doesn't count as > monopolar, I give up. > It cannod be called monopole, as it has two poles, that are not physically separated. Timothy shown its possible construction in his drawing, repeated below in modified form: _ _ _ _ _ / \ / \ / \ / \ / etc.. | || | || ++N++ || ++N++ || + | + || + | + || + ^ + vv + ^ + vv + | + || + | + || ++S++ || ++S++ || | || | || \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_ etc... If you fold it into a sphere, with all south poles at the center and north poles on the surface, the north poles of the constituting magnets would be put out outside, and the south poles completely hidden inside the sphere - or so it seems... However, in a magnet there are no special physical points that can be called a "pole" at which the objects attracted by a magnet stop and go no further (as it goes with electrical charge). The poles are only convenient names of the parts of the magnets to/from which the lines of force go, the name of the pole being determined by the direction of the lines of force at this region. [Note that outside the magnet the lines go N->S, whereas inside it - in the opposite direction S->N] In the construction above, the lines of force of the field go out of north poles, then bend back into the surface of the sphere to join the south poles in the center. Where they are dipping into the surface of the sphere, they go in OPPOSITE direction than at the sticking-out north poles, hence their direction defines at these spots SOUTH poles on the surface of the sphere. Hence, the surface of the sphere such constructed appears as a mosaic of north and south poles, as follows: N S N S _ _ _ _ _ / \ / \ / \ / \ / etc... ^ vv ^ vv ++N++ || ++N++ || + | + || + | + || This is neatly confirmed by the behaviour of your testing magnet, to quote from your earlier letter: > Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:58:02 -0700 > From: kyle > > [...] I tried testing it with another permanent magnet, which > quickly began to vibrate, and tried to switch sides. (N/S) > As was pointed out by Timothy, you just cannot construct a monopole from dipoles (possibly, unless you can severely warp the space itself...). -- Zenon PS. Concerning scientists, professionals, and amateurs: The though experiment and analysis done above is just what should be made by a scientist (or professional) BEFORE he/she goes into the open announcing the discovery of some as yet unknown effect or device (like a monopole). If one announces the discovery BEFORE making thorough mental analysis and experimental testing (also followed by thorough analysis, interpretation, and explanation of the obtained results), he/she is an amateur. And when he/she at the same time claims it to be scientific fact (wrongly suppressed by "hard scientists") - he/she is a pseudoscientist. Hope it helps. -- Z From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 10:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1403" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "11:11:13" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "37" "Re: starship-design: Re: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA09636 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:11:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA09570 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:11:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.79]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA30891 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:11:30 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D3A640.1987@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1402 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: No comments Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:11:13 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > Kyle > > >>Well, you owe us a message as soon as your magnetic monopole definately > >>turns out to be a fake or a hit. > >> > >Since the magnetic lines aren't broken, I suppose its not a monopole. I > >preffer not to call it a fake, as that would imply that I tried to fool > >people, and make me look stupid. I simply call it a failed expiriment. > >It does put out all north fields (outside), but if this doesn't count as > >monopolar, I give up. > > Doesn't sound like you at all... Well, no one listened to my monopole idea (not just SSD, but many others). Even if it is a monopole, what's it worth if no one will give me a chance? The people where I'm at won't even talk to me once I say "monopole". > > Oh, I wondered, you wrote that the other group appreciates your input > better. What does that mean concretely? Theoretical ideas. There are some private outfits that support theoretical research better than the scientific community. When I first joined SSD, I thought theory was accepted with open arms, as LeRC did. I was wrong. Steve told me that the reason no one had accepted AG/ZPE ideas was because they hadn't been proven. I now know the reason: The scientific community doesn't give them a chance to prove their ideas. I'm not going to argue over this, since I have all the evidence I need. Its called firsthand expirience. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 10:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1180" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "13:23:42" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "35" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA13756 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:22:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA13715 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:22:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id NPC01437; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:20:47 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970721.132342.13862.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707211604.SAA07363@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-16,19-33 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1179 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:23:42 -0400 On Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:04:05 +0200 (MET DST) Zenon Kulpa writes: >> Hope this is better. The sail pulls a column that passes through >the >> sail, with the payload on top, away from the Earth side of the sail. >> >Sorry, did not work this time either. > >Concerning the idea itself, I have doubts: >- the central compression column must quite thick, hence heavy: > the problem is not so much with compression strength > as with bending of long (relative to width) objects > compressed lengthwise (the effect is called "buckling" > if I am not mistaken). Actually, the central column would be a truss, relatively light-weight but strong. You are correct about buckling, though, the seminal work was by Euler (see any engineering mechanics text, look up Euler's Columns). >- the construction will be rather unstable (like Wright brothers > early planes, with their tail-first design): the central column > wil tend to veer to the sides. > Good point about the stability. >The parachute design seems much better; the payload can be >shielded from the beam by a small sail supported by correspondingly >small truss structure. > >-- Zenon > From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 10:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4636" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "11:28:37" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "118" "Re: starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA17009 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:28:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA16995 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:28:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-85.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.85]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA01967 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:28:52 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D3AA54.44CB@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199707211543.RAA07336@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 4635 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:28:37 -0700 Zenon Kulpa wrote: > > Of course I must agree (mostly...). > However, as someone said, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Carl Sagan, I think. > Scientists making such claims do not cry about "conspiracy" I don't believe in these conspiracy ideas. > if other scientists doubt in their claims and ask for more evidence. > And then they work hard to provide that evidence and they withdraw > their claim when hard evidence does not materialize, without > vails of being "not listened to" or otherwise suppressed. > This is how real science works. I can't prove some of my ideas (yet) because I don't have access to space. > > > I wonder why no one is cut down when bringing in a concept like > > "cellular universe" or Lorentz contraction, (neither of which has been > > proven, which violates everything said here), > > > Concerning "cellural universe" it was pure speculation of the > "what if..." type, nobody discussing it claimed it to be > at all sure and ready for use in designing starships or whatever. > Such discussions on the speculative-hypothetical level are valuable, > if only to open minds for wider space of possibilities, > provided everybody understands them for what they are - > just speculative-hypothetical thought experiments. > Concerning Lorents contraction - see the answer by Steve. I still say this: No one has propelled a macroscopic object up to near 99.999+ lightspeed, with an inboard propulsion system, and seen what happened. As steve pointed out, actions on the quantum level don't necessarily apply to the material world. Who knows? Maybe the limit on material objects (unlikely) is 50%C. As said: show me the evidence. > > > but when I bring up a > > concept, I'm instantly shot down with a barrage of messages > > whose basic line is: don't bring up something you can't prove. > > > You are not simply "bringing up a concept". > You are additionally claiming that is it sure, > proven [here a few WWW links], working and ready > to mount on a starship. > And this certainly may be a little unnerving... I've given plenty of arguments about that, and I'm not going to say them again. > > > If you > > want some example of commonly accepted science that has never been > > proved, e-mail me. There's something not right here if unproven ideas > > invented by proffesionals are accepted, but amatuer's ideas are canned. > > > The answer is simple - professionals, just because of their > professionalism and experience, far more often than amateurs > bring up ideas that are eventually proven to be valid. > This of course does not mean - and nobody at this list said that - > that amateur's ideas are certainly always wrong, > just because they have been brought up by an amateur. > But they deserve at least the same (or even larger) > amount of doubt and requests for hard evidence as any others' ideas. > Certainly, the holy fervor of their proponents > is NOT evidence enough. > Nobody (almost) listened to Wright brothers before > their plane flied safely in the air several times. > > > Kyle Mcallister > > > > P.S.: I'm not taking this personally, but speaking in the name of science. > > > As it was remarked by Steve, become a scientist before you try > to speak in the name of science. I am a scientist, for I am not too far out, and not too stuffyheaded. I'm right between. If you want to keep calling me pseudoscientist, watch out: one day you may resent that. Also, have you realized in my last few messages how I don't seem to care much about my ideas anymore? Does this please the group? > And I must warn you - it is a very tiresome and often unrewarding job. > Generating great ideas is only a tiny part of it. > 99.9% of science is painstaking testing and search for evidence > (and error) - all too often ending with the "false!" answer... > Are you ready for that toil, Kyle? I have already began. Closer to 99.99%, I think. > > Otherwise, you will be nothing more than an amateur pseudoscientist, > generating tens of unsubstantiated ideas a minute (that is VERY easy) > and crying about "conspiracies", suppression of thought > by "hard scientists", and the like. And what do professional scientists do? Generate tens of unsubstantiated ideas and try to see if their true. Thats what I do. I require proof, but I've seen proof to may things still unnacepted by mainstream science. I hope I live until 2060, just to see how much physics has changed. I'll bet you it will be changed in many a way. > > The choice is yours. The choice is yes, I am a scientist, and will remain so. > > Best wishes, > > -- Zenon Thank you. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 11:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["291" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "14:34:01" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "14" "starship-design: New web site" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA20513 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:32:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA20473 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:32:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id OrH01437; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:31:11 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970721.143401.18502.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-1,4-12 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 290 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: New web site Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:34:01 -0400 To everyone, I have a home page now! There's not much there yet, except a link to the LIT (of course), but please visit and leave comments, suggestions, links, and anything else in my guest book. My URL is: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/lab/3403 Ya'll come, ya here! :) Jim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 11:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["972" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "12:50:08" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA28405 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:50:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA28384 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:50:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-115.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.115]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA20122 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:50:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D3BD6F.9E5@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199707211657.SAA07406@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 971 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:50:08 -0700 Zenon Kulpa wrote: > > PS. Concerning scientists, professionals, and amateurs: > The though experiment and analysis done above is just what > should be made by a scientist (or professional) BEFORE he/she > goes into the open announcing the discovery of some as yet > unknown effect or device (like a monopole). > If one announces the discovery BEFORE making thorough > mental analysis and experimental testing (also followed > by thorough analysis, interpretation, and explanation > of the obtained results), he/she is an amateur. > And when he/she at the same time claims it to be scientific > fact (wrongly suppressed by "hard scientists") - > he/she is a pseudoscientist. > Hope it helps. -- Z I did not announce it as a discovery. I simply said it was interesting and needed looking into. I asked SSD to help me make an analysis, and see if it was really a monopole. So, once again, I'm not a pseudoscientist. Kyle From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 11:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["7332" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "20:45:19" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "188" "Re: starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA29292 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:52:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA29249 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:52:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id UAA07491; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:45:19 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707211845.UAA07491@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 7331 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:45:19 +0200 (MET DST) > From: kyle > > Zenon Kulpa wrote: > > > > Of course I must agree (mostly...). > > However, as someone said, extraordinary claims > > need extraordinary evidence. > > Carl Sagan, I think. > Thank you for the confirmation. I was not sure. > > Scientists making such claims do not cry about "conspiracy" > > I don't believe in these conspiracy ideas. > That sounds promising ;-) > > if other scientists doubt in their claims and ask for more evidence. > > And then they work hard to provide that evidence and they withdraw > > their claim when hard evidence does not materialize, without > > vails of being "not listened to" or otherwise suppressed. > > This is how real science works. > > I can't prove some of my ideas (yet) because I don't have access to space. > Ehem, I wonder... Usually any sensible physical idea has a lot of different physical consequences. Some of them may require an access to space to be fully tested experimentally, but many would not. Derive rigorously and theoretically these factual consequences of your ideas that CAN be tested here on Earth (I am sure there are many), test them (or publish them so that others can test them), and when they show true, you will have strong arguments with which to go and ask for money on space experiments. In this way relativity was tested too. > > > I wonder why no one is cut down when bringing in a concept like > > > "cellular universe" or Lorentz contraction, (neither of which has been > > > proven, which violates everything said here), > > > > > Concerning "cellural universe" it was pure speculation of the > > "what if..." type, nobody discussing it claimed it to be > > at all sure and ready for use in designing starships or whatever. > > Such discussions on the speculative-hypothetical level are valuable, > > if only to open minds for wider space of possibilities, > > provided everybody understands them for what they are - > > just speculative-hypothetical thought experiments. > > Concerning Lorents contraction - see the answer by Steve. > > I still say this: No one has propelled a macroscopic object up to near > 99.999+ lightspeed, with an inboard propulsion system, and seen what > happened. As steve pointed out, actions on the quantum level don't > necessarily apply to the material world. Who knows? Maybe the limit on > material objects (unlikely) is 50%C. As said: show me the evidence. > I am not a specialist in relativity, so I go by the opinion of specialists in that field. Steve is one (at leat far better than me ;-). I may say, that there is at least a "not forbidden" evidence - current physical theories of space-time are tested at very many points in the range of their applicability, and nothing in them prevents the possibility of macroscopic objects flying near light speed. And being contracted/time dilated at that. Of course, we cannot be sure. But because it fits into a theory otherwise very well tested, we can be many times more sure that it will work that way than not - the latter claim backed only by a word of honor of certain Kyle Mcallister ;-) > > > but when I bring up a > > > concept, I'm instantly shot down with a barrage of messages > > > whose basic line is: don't bring up something you can't prove. > > > > > You are not simply "bringing up a concept". > > You are additionally claiming that is it sure, > > proven [here a few WWW links], working and ready > > to mount on a starship. > > And this certainly may be a little unnerving... > > I've given plenty of arguments about that, and I'm not going to say them > and I'm not going to say them again. > How come I did not see them? > > > If you > > > want some example of commonly accepted science that has never been > > > proved, e-mail me. There's something not right here if unproven ideas > > > invented by proffesionals are accepted, but amatuer's ideas are canned. > > > > > The answer is simple - professionals, just because of their > > professionalism and experience, far more often than amateurs > > bring up ideas that are eventually proven to be valid. > > This of course does not mean - and nobody at this list said that - > > that amateur's ideas are certainly always wrong, > > just because they have been brought up by an amateur. > > But they deserve at least the same (or even larger) > > amount of doubt and requests for hard evidence as any others' ideas. > > Certainly, the holy fervor of their proponents > > is NOT evidence enough. > > Nobody (almost) listened to Wright brothers before > > their plane flied safely in the air several times. > > > > > Kyle Mcallister > > > > > > P.S.: I'm not taking this personally, > > > but speaking in the name of science. > > > > > As it was remarked by Steve, become a scientist before you try > > to speak in the name of science. > > I am a scientist, for I am not too far out, and not too stuffyheaded. > I'm right between. If you want to keep calling me pseudoscientist, watch > out: one day you may resent that. > Huh? You will throw me out of my research position? ;-)) > Also, have you realized in my last few > messages how I don't seem to care much about my ideas anymore? > Does this please the group? > No. We were displeased NOT by your CARING for your ideas, but by advancing them frocibly with only your holy fervor as the evidence. It is quite bad you do not care for them any longer - you should still care enough, either to work toward finding more hard evidence for them, or toward disproving them (you know, the negative result is also a valuable scientific result - spares a lot of time of other researchers spent on wandering in blind alleys). > > And I must warn you - it is a very tiresome and often unrewarding job. > > Generating great ideas is only a tiny part of it. > > 99.9% of science is painstaking testing and search for evidence > > (and error) - all too often ending with the "false!" answer... > > Are you ready for that toil, Kyle? > > I have already began. Closer to 99.99%, I think. > Good news! > > Otherwise, you will be nothing more than an amateur pseudoscientist, > > generating tens of unsubstantiated ideas a minute (that is VERY easy) > > and crying about "conspiracies", suppression of thought > > by "hard scientists", and the like. > > And what do professional scientists do? Generate tens of unsubstantiated > ideas and try to see if their true. Thats what I do. I require proof, > but I've seen proof to may things still unnacepted by mainstream > science. > Not everything seen as proof (especially by a beginneer in the trade) is indeed a proof. One of the qualities of a scientist (hard and long to learn too) is an ability to find holes and weak spots in "proofs" (including his/her own). [Remember also Sagan words, and read something about Randi and the Skeptical Inquirer.] > I hope I live until 2060, just to see how much physics has > changed. I'll bet you it will be changed in many a way. > Easy bet. Everybody knows that much. But can you specify what and how it changes? If you can, you are really a GREAT scientist (or a Prophet... ;-) > > The choice is yours. > > The choice is yes, I am a scientist, and will remain so. > Good to hear that. Provided we understand the word "scientist" in the same way. Best wishes, -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 12:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1755" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "21:03:23" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "44" "Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA09417 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:12:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA09291 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:12:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id VAA07511; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:03:23 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707211903.VAA07511@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1754 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:03:23 +0200 (MET DST) > From: kyle > > Zenon Kulpa wrote: > > > > PS. Concerning scientists, professionals, and amateurs: > > The though experiment and analysis done above is just what > > should be made by a scientist (or professional) BEFORE he/she > > goes into the open announcing the discovery of some as yet > > unknown effect or device (like a monopole). > > If one announces the discovery BEFORE making thorough > > mental analysis and experimental testing (also followed > > by thorough analysis, interpretation, and explanation > > of the obtained results), he/she is an amateur. > > And when he/she at the same time claims it to be scientific > > fact (wrongly suppressed by "hard scientists") - > > he/she is a pseudoscientist. > > Hope it helps. -- Z > > I did not announce it as a discovery. I simply said it was interesting > and needed looking into. I asked SSD to help me make an analysis, and > see if it was really a monopole. > Are you satisfied by my analysis? The problem is, you did not describe your design in enough details so that one can attempt a proper analysis. Timothy's design was a (probable) guess, but since you did not dismiss it, I have considered it valid and hence worth some analysis. Before that, your claim could be dismissed only on general grounds (you cannot make a monopole from dipoles...), or using the First Skeptical Rule of Thumb: if it is that simple, it should have been invented long ago... Both ways it is not foolproof disproof (nice phrase, indeed), and you somehow seemed offended by our skepticism... > So, once again, I'm not a pseudoscientist. > That is good news, really... And proves my definitions were of help too ;-) -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 13:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3190" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "14:01:51" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "87" "Re: starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA01451 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:02:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA01437 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:02:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-102.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.102]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA07168 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:02:02 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D3CE3E.6A73@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199707211845.UAA07491@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 3189 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:01:51 -0700 Zenon Kulpa wrote: > > Huh? You will throw me out of my research position? ;-)) Is hould have specified: that comment wasn't directed at you, but people that label me as stupid. What I meant was: People may resent calling me a fool (like the scientists nearby [missisipi] when I mentioned the monopole idea). I do not wish to throw any of you out of your positions, even if it was possible. We need more scientists (contactees need not apply). Sorry I wasn't more clear. > > > Also, have you realized in my last few > > messages how I don't seem to care much about my ideas anymore? > > Does this please the group? > > > No. > We were displeased NOT by your CARING for your ideas, > but by advancing them frocibly with only your holy fervor as the evidence. > It is quite bad you do not care for them any longer - > you should still care enough, either to work toward finding > more hard evidence for them, or toward disproving them > (you know, the negative result is also a valuable scientific result - > spares a lot of time of other researchers spent on wandering in > blind alleys). Good point. I guess I should continue research. Perhaps something else useful will be found (medical research, etc.) > > > > And I must warn you - it is a very tiresome and often unrewarding job. > > > Generating great ideas is only a tiny part of it. > > > 99.9% of science is painstaking testing and search for evidence > > > (and error) - all too often ending with the "false!" answer... > > > Are you ready for that toil, Kyle? > > > > I have already began. Closer to 99.99%, I think. > > > Good news! > > > > Otherwise, you will be nothing more than an amateur pseudoscientist, > > > generating tens of unsubstantiated ideas a minute (that is VERY easy) > > > and crying about "conspiracies", suppression of thought > > > by "hard scientists", and the like. > > > > And what do professional scientists do? Generate tens of unsubstantiated > > ideas and try to see if their true. Thats what I do. I require proof, > > but I've seen proof to may things still unnacepted by mainstream > > science. > > > Not everything seen as proof (especially by a beginneer in the trade) > is indeed a proof. > One of the qualities of a scientist (hard and long to learn too) > is an ability to find holes and weak spots in "proofs" > (including his/her own). > > [Remember also Sagan words, and read something about Randi > and the Skeptical Inquirer.] > > > I hope I live until 2060, just to see how much physics has > > changed. I'll bet you it will be changed in many a way. > > > Easy bet. Everybody knows that much. > But can you specify what and how it changes? > If you can, you are really a GREAT scientist (or a Prophet... ;-) Prophecy is a dangerous thing: make one mistake, and religious fanatics stone you (literally)! As far as being a great scientist, one that comes to mind that made many true predictions is Arthur C. Clarke. > > > > The choice is yours. > > > > The choice is yes, I am a scientist, and will remain so. > > > Good to hear that. > Provided we understand the word "scientist" in the same way. I think so. > > Best wishes, > > -- Zenon And to you, Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 13:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1121" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "14:06:38" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "31" "Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA02854 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:06:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA02772 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:06:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-102.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.102]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA12039 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:06:49 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D3CF5D.4F3A@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199707211903.VAA07511@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1120 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:06:38 -0700 Zenon Kulpa wrote: > > Are you satisfied by my analysis? Yes. > The problem is, you did not describe your design in enough > details so that one can attempt a proper analysis. > Timothy's design was a (probable) guess, but since you > did not dismiss it, I have considered it valid > and hence worth some analysis. > Before that, your claim could be dismissed only on general grounds > (you cannot make a monopole from dipoles...), > or using the First Skeptical Rule of Thumb: > if it is that simple, it should have been invented long ago... > Both ways it is not foolproof disproof (nice phrase, indeed), > and you somehow seemed offended by our skepticism... No, I wasn't offended. Email makes it hard to distinguish moods. I'll send the schematics later on (sometime this evening). It's not spherical, and probably isn't a monopole, but it is useful in some ways. > > > So, once again, I'm not a pseudoscientist. > > > That is good news, really... > And proves my definitions were of help too ;-) Your defenitions were quite helpful indeed. I am new, so I need pointing in the right direction on occasion. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 13:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1027" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "14:22:50" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" "<33D3D32A.553D@sunherald.infi.net>" "31" "starship-design: Black holes: a mystery" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA09956 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:23:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA09942 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:23:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-73.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.73]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA10567 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:23:01 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D3D32A.553D@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199707010114.SAA04638@watt> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1026 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:22:50 -0700 Greetings: Ken Wharton sent me this puzzle awhile back, and I haven't figured it out yet. Perhaps some of you have ideas? It's a well-established idea in physics that there's no such thing as action- at-a-distance. All forces are intermediated by particles. Electromagnetism is passed around by photons, gravity is transmitted with gravity waves (or gravitons) etc. So what happens when you're just outside of a black hole's event horizon? Something is pulling you toward the black hole, very powerfully, but what? If gravitons are emerging from the black hole to pull you in, then they must be travelling faster than light; not even light can escape a black hole. So how can gravitons escape?? The traditional answer might say that these gravitons are "virtual", so they can travel faster than light, but that merely passes on the question of what a virtual graviton (or photon) really is. Does it exist? If so, how can it travel FTL? Does it transmit information FTL? If not, why not? Good luck. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 13:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1519" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "16:44:49" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA18722 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:43:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA18708 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:43:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id QwW01437; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:42:05 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970721.164449.3222.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707010114.SAA04638@watt> <33D3D32A.553D@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-35,41-43 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1518 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:44:49 -0400 On Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:22:50 -0700 kyle writes: >Greetings: >Ken Wharton sent me this puzzle awhile back, and I haven't figured it >out yet. Perhaps some of you have ideas? > >It's a well-established idea in physics that there's no such thing as >action- >at-a-distance. All forces are intermediated by particles. >Electromagnetism >is passed around by photons, gravity is transmitted with gravity waves >(or >gravitons) etc. > >So what happens when you're just outside of a black hole's event >horizon? >Something is pulling you toward the black hole, very powerfully, but >what? >If gravitons are emerging from the black hole to pull you in, then >they >must be travelling faster than light; not even light can escape a >black >hole. So how can gravitons escape?? > >The traditional answer might say that these gravitons are "virtual", >so >they can travel faster than light, but that merely passes on the >question of what >a virtual graviton (or photon) really is. Does it exist? If so, how >can it >travel FTL? Does it transmit information FTL? If not, why not? > >Good luck. > >Kyle Mcallister > Well, I'm no physicist, but here is my two cents worth. If you model space-time as a compressible fluid, and the presence mass causes this fluid to compress, then you need no transmission, or, put it another way, space-time itself is the transmitter. This is pure hypothesis, and I have no details yet on how well this model works. I'll post them when I finish with them. Jim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 14:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2869" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "14:20:02" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "51" "starship-design: Black holes: a mystery" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA02653 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:20:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA02620 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:20:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA15483 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:19:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA21352; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:20:02 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707212120.OAA21352@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33D3D32A.553D@sunherald.infi.net> References: <199707010114.SAA04638@watt> <33D3D32A.553D@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2868 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:20:02 -0700 kyle writes: > So what happens when you're just outside of a black hole's event > horizon? Something is pulling you toward the black hole, very > powerfully, but what? If gravitons are emerging from the black hole > to pull you in, then they must be travelling faster than light; not > even light can escape a black hole. So how can gravitons escape?? It's a common misconception that what prevents you from escaping from a black hole is an escape velocity faster than light. Unfortunately this is both relativistically meaningless and not borne out by a more careful analysis of how black holes work. Just the finite radius and mass of a black hole will tell you that its escape velocity is less than c, even taking general relativistic effects into account. When I was about your age, Kyle, I used purely classical means to derive an expression for black hole radius-vs.-mass that I later learned was off by a factor of two because I didn't know general relativity. Such are the perils of being a young physics student. My analysis was based on escape _energy_; if it takes more energy than a particle contains for it to escape, then it cannot. What really makes a black hole inescapable is that once you pack enough mass within a critical radius the spacetime curvature within that radius become degenerate. All movement in space or time leads inexorably towards the central singularity; you can't escape and you can't even stand still. I don't think that even moving faster than light would help; you'd just get to the singularity faster. Black hole evaporation is the result of virtual particle creation, but the virtual particles escape not because they travel faster than light, but because they are created just above the event horizon, and hence are capable of escaping if they have enough energy. Black holes evaporate at a rate dependent on their mass, where much more massive black holes with less extreme gravity gradients evaporate at an almost imperceptible rate and small black holes evaporate rapidly, even explosively at the end. Quantum black holes, unless they were continually supplied with mass, all would have evaporated by now, and forming new ones is difficult because the high rate of evaporation makes it difficult to pump enough mass into them to keep them from evaporating away. Furthermore, gravitons are pretty speculative at this point; although quantum mechanics and general relativity are both successful, well-tested theories they have not been combined into a well-accepted unified theory. Einstein tried for much of his career but his inability to accept certain aspects of quantum mechanics probably kept him from succeeding. We do know that there are concentrations of mass in the universe that appear to be black holes, both from their characteristic radiation and the movement of mass in their vicinity. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 15:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2762" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "00:18:13" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "64" "Re: starship-design: Re: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA29067 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 15:23:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA28994 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 15:23:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-026.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqQrw-000EtmC; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:23:52 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2761 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: No comments Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:18:13 +0100 Kyle, >> Doesn't sound like you at all... > >Well, no one listened to my monopole idea (not just SSD, but many >others). Even if it is a monopole, what's it worth if no one will give >me a chance? The people where I'm at won't even talk to me once I say >"monopole". I think the main reason for people not to take you as serious as you like, is your firmness while having only little proof. I never saw you write: "I might have missed that". True you might not have missed anything, but that would be extremely unlikely with the relative crude measurements you did. Besides all this, it helps enourmously if you have some explanation/theory about the phenomena you discover. Such a theory will allow you and others to explore the phenomenon in other ways. >> Oh, I wondered, you wrote that the other group appreciates your input >> better. What does that mean concretely? > >Theoretical ideas. There are some private outfits that support >theoretical research better than the scientific community. When I first >joined SSD, I thought theory was accepted with open arms, as LeRC did. I >was wrong. > >Steve told me that the reason no one had accepted AG/ZPE ideas was >because they hadn't been proven. I now know the reason: The scientific >community doesn't give them a chance to prove their ideas. I'm not going >to argue over this, since I have all the evidence I need. Its called >firsthand expirience. True, life would be a lot easier if everybody gave one another chances. However if we give too many chances, we will be overwhelmed and can't help anyone. To avoid this overload, there are many unwritten rules. Discovering these rules is not an easy thing. Not following these necessary rules, one may find himself in a void. First hand experience is good, it keeps you going. However you should enable to let others experience at first hand too. It seems unreasonable to expect others to believe extraordinary claims without some explanation. I've given you several chances, and I still do, but you should us give chances too; The information you've given us is quite little (like Zenon notes). In fact I still don't know if the monopole you wrote about is the same as the design we discussed in a private mailing. Furthermore, you should have responded to my possible explanation for your measured effect. And when I think back to the private mailing, you weren't really bothered by the fact, that the effect you wanted to measure was not clearly measurable the way you did. Summarizing: - Give others chances by clearly and orderly showing the information you have. - If people suggest mistakes in your approach, responding adequately will keep their interest. - Trying to find an explanation/theory will help yourself and others. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 15:24 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["401" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "00:18:12" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "14" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA00046 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 15:24:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA29861 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 15:24:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-026.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqQru-000EunC; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:23:50 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 400 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:18:12 +0100 Regarding problem 12b: I'd wanted to mention the Euler instability (didn't know it had a name though), but assumed that if we could not control the sail, then using any sail-design would be a mistake. Writing this I realize that we may be able to control a sail-design if it has less inherent instability. My best guess is to use a parashute-model and shield the relative small payload. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 15:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3429" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "16:54:40" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "75" "Re: starship-design: Re: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA14792 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 15:54:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA14729 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 15:54:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-80.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.80]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA23080 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:54:47 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D3F6C0.51E0@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 3428 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: No comments Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:54:40 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > I think the main reason for people not to take you as serious as you like, > is your firmness while having only little proof. > I never saw you write: "I might have missed that". True you might not have > missed anything, but that would be extremely unlikely with the relative > crude measurements you did. > > Besides all this, it helps enourmously if you have some explanation/theory > about the phenomena you discover. Such a theory will allow you and others to > explore the phenomenon in other ways. > > >> Oh, I wondered, you wrote that the other group appreciates your input > >> better. What does that mean concretely? > > > >Theoretical ideas. There are some private outfits that support > >theoretical research better than the scientific community. When I first > >joined SSD, I thought theory was accepted with open arms, as LeRC did. I > >was wrong. > > > >Steve told me that the reason no one had accepted AG/ZPE ideas was > >because they hadn't been proven. I now know the reason: The scientific > >community doesn't give them a chance to prove their ideas. I'm not going > >to argue over this, since I have all the evidence I need. Its called > >firsthand expirience. > > True, life would be a lot easier if everybody gave one another chances. > However if we give too many chances, we will be overwhelmed and can't help > anyone. > To avoid this overload, there are many unwritten rules. Discovering these > rules is not an easy thing. Not following these necessary rules, one may > find himself in a void. > > First hand experience is good, it keeps you going. However you should enable > to let others experience at first hand too. It seems unreasonable to expect > others to believe extraordinary claims without some explanation. > > I've given you several chances, and I still do, but you should us give > chances too; The information you've given us is quite little (like Zenon notes). > In fact I still don't know if the monopole you wrote about is the same as > the design we discussed in a private mailing. I didn't think we discussed monopoles in private, just DST's (which I'm leery to test, due to the X-rays. Maybe if I did it from a distance I would be safe? I'll send my design diagrams to everyone on SSD as soon as I can. I assure you, I'll send them at latest, by tommorow. > > Furthermore, you should have responded to my possible explanation for your > measured effect. I thought it was self-answerable: I placed the compass near the device, and the needle reversed direction, with the north end pointing towards the device. If I placed the compass on the other side, it reversed again, the same way. I tried with angles, circling the device, on top,underneath, and nowhere did the south end stay towards the device. Maybe even if its not a monopole, it might still have a useful purpose. > And when I think back to the private mailing, you weren't really bothered by > the fact, that the effect you wanted to measure was not clearly measurable > the way you did. Afraid I don't understand what you mean... > > Summarizing: > - Give others chances by clearly and orderly showing the information you have. > - If people suggest mistakes in your approach, responding adequately will keep > their interest. > - Trying to find an explanation/theory will help yourself and others. Good points. I'll try to abide by them from now on. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 16:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1514" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "01:05:16" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "43" "Re: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA25663 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:10:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA25584 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:10:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-026.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqRbS-000FCbC; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 01:10:54 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1513 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 01:05:16 +0100 Reply to Steve and Kyle: Steve, >What really makes a black hole inescapable is that once you pack enough >mass within a critical radius the spacetime curvature within that radius >become degenerate. All movement in space or time leads inexorably >towards the central singularity; you can't escape and you can't even >stand still. I don't think that even moving faster than light would >help; you'd just get to the singularity faster. Hmm, I'd say all movement through space would lead to the singularity. Movement through time however is a hope, unfortunately you'd need to go back in time though. Timothy ============================================================================= Kyle, Some years ago, I discovered Ken's puzzle myself. Not being able to solve it, I asked a theoretical physics teacher. The conditional answer he had after 1 day of preparation time was: The surface of the black hole is a dense network of gravitons. From what I understood, these gravitons can "communicate" both with the inside and outside (and thus can represent the mass that is inside). In my own words, I'd tend to use the rubbersheet approach. Even though the properties of the sheet change from inside to outside the event horizon, they are still connected in some way. The stresses in the sheet are exchanged, otherwise the sheet would let loose. To use Jim's two cents: space-time itself is the transmitter. Sofar, I'd say the puzzle is solved, but needs prove to exclude other possibilities. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 19:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1332" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "21:00:51" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "28" "RE: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA01342 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:40:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01333 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:40:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p9.gnt.com (x2p7.gnt.com [204.49.68.212]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA09752 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:40:51 -0500 Received: by x2p9.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC961E.C1B6CFE0@x2p9.gnt.com>; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:40:50 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC961E.C1B6CFE0@x2p9.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id TAA01334 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1331 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:00:51 -0500 Kyle, If you simply wait a little while you will find that your spherical dipole will quickly realign its magnetic fields to produce two EXTERNAL magnetic poles. ANY groups of magnets that are truly joined (fused) into a single magnet show this property. The charge distributes (redistributes) itself evenly over the new magnet. Even temporarily, a sufficiently sensitive mapping of the magnetic force lines will reveal the presence of the (temporary) interior magnetic field. As Timothy said, you must test and test again before you announce a new "discovery". Science is replete with miraculous new discoveries that turned out to be something else entirely. However, do not lose hope, just because one idea doesn't work is no reason not to try the next one, sooner or later.... Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way . . . knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation." -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Autobiography From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 19:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2652" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "21:22:54" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "36" "RE: starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA01396 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:41:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01367 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:41:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p9.gnt.com (x2p7.gnt.com [204.49.68.212]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA09774 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:40:58 -0500 Received: by x2p9.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC961E.C562C0E0@x2p9.gnt.com>; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:40:56 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC961E.C562C0E0@x2p9.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id TAA01381 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2651 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:22:54 -0500 Kyle and Zenon, Kyle, could you please find a mail editor that is not a text attachment device? It is like you are coming through a bulletin board system and I know there are plenty of on line systems in your area, I'm in your area. It is real hard to quote you when all I get is a text attachment, it takes a lot of cut and paste activity, and I have to work for a living, I DON'T have the time. Zenon, in regards to: >I still say this: No one has propelled a macroscopic object up to near >99.999+ lightspeed, with an inboard propulsion system, and seen what >happened. As Steve pointed out, actions on the quantum level don't >necessarily apply to the material world. Who knows? Maybe the limit on >material objects (unlikely) is 50%C. As said: show me the evidence. This argument is specious, it works both ways, BECAUSE no one has accelerated a macroscopic object up to 99.999+ lightspeed (or even close) we don't have any idea what the limits, if any, are. I can think of at least one line of argument that PROVES there is no such thing as the speed of light. Of course, like everything else it is merely a mathematical proof and it is subject to revision according to experimental evidence of which there isn't any. Kyle, this brings us back to the point that Steve, Timothy, Zenon, and Kyle keep hitting on. You have not provided ANY facts in the way of a demonstrable, repeatable experiment that another scientist or engineer can duplicate. If you want to be believed, WRITE IT DOWN. If we can't duplicate the experiment, we will find somebody who can. As you yourself pointed out, NASA is interested and I (and Kelly) have friends there. If you can delineate your experiment so that it can be repeated by others and tested for alternative explanations, then it will be accepted. It may take awhile, but the system works. As Steve and Zenon have said, simply screaming "conspiracy" makes you less credible, not more. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "I am afraid the knockabout comedy of modern atomic physics is not very tender towards our aesthetic ideals. The stately drama of stellar evolution turns out to be more like the hair-breadth escapades in the films. The music of the spheres has a painful suggestion of -- jazz." -- Arthur S. Eddington, Stars and Atoms, 1926. -----Original Message----- From: kyle [SMTP:stk@sunherald.infi.net] Sent: Monday, July 21, 1997 1:29 PM To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: PseudoScience? << File: ATT00003.txt; charset = koi8-r >> From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 19:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1193" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "21:39:52" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "18" "RE: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA01427 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:41:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01411 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:41:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p9.gnt.com (x2p7.gnt.com [204.49.68.212]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA09783 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:41:03 -0500 Received: by x2p9.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC961E.C91DF420@x2p9.gnt.com>; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:41:02 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC961E.C91DF420@x2p9.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id TAA01416 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1192 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:39:52 -0500 Kyle, Ken passed you a good puzzle. Some of the newer theories deal with what gravity actually is rather than describing how it should act. It may be that gravity is somewhat more fundamental than we thought. If space really does have a "fabric" that can be bent then it is possible that the action of gravity (and in certain cases, other forces) could be faster than light. This is just one area where there are currently MANY theories with experimental evidence to back each of them, but no definitive conclusion yet. Your favorite ZPE is intricately woven into most of the theories. Dig deeper, maybe YOU will be the one to figure it out. (I hope you like math...) Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet." -- John Dryden, "Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco," 1674 From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 19:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["45" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "21:44:46" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "4" "RE: starship-design: Re: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA04226 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:52:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA04215 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:52:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p9.gnt.com (x2p7.gnt.com [204.49.68.212]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA10610 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:52:55 -0500 Received: by x2p9.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9620.70526860@x2p9.gnt.com>; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:52:52 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9620.70526860@x2p9.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 44 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: No comments Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:44:46 -0500 PROOF = First hand REEXPERIENCE Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 20:05 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["926" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "21:05:46" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "21" "Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA07795 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:05:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA07786 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:05:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-84.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.84]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA05759 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:05:46 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D4319A.3E06@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BC961E.C1B6CFE0@x2p9.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 925 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:05:46 -0700 L. Parker wrote: > > Kyle, > > If you simply wait a little while you will find that your spherical dipole will > quickly realign its magnetic fields to produce two EXTERNAL magnetic poles. ANY > groups of magnets that are truly joined (fused) into a single magnet show this property. The charge distributes (redistributes) itself evenly over the new > magnet. Even temporarily, a sufficiently sensitive mapping of the magnetic force > lines will reveal the presence of the (temporary) interior magnetic field. > > As Timothy said, you must test and test again before you announce a new > "discovery". Science is replete with miraculous new discoveries that turned out > to be something else entirely. However, do not lose hope, just because one idea > doesn't work is no reason not to try the next one, sooner or later.... > Actually, its not made of magnets at all. I promise, I'll post the data soon (tommorow). Kyle From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 20:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["388" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "21:49:56" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "9" "starship-design: I never said that!" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA18084 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:50:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA18075 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:50:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-72.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-72.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.72]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA23790 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:50:16 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D43BF3.3B35@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 387 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: I never said that! Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:49:56 -0700 I have been sent email many times saying I was screaming "conspiracy! conspiracy!". It's time to put this to rest, once and for all: I NEVER said that. I don't know where that came from, but I don't believe this conspiracy stuff. Think about it: if scientists knew about antigravity/ftl device being built, it would be national news. Scientists don't hide things, they study them. Kyle From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 21:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["163" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "22:28:42" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "7" "RE: starship-design: Re: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA23121 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:13:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA23112 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:13:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p9.gnt.com (x2p1.gnt.com [204.49.68.206]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA15526 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:13:24 -0500 Received: by x2p9.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC962B.B0F2E600@x2p9.gnt.com>; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:13:25 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC962B.B0F2E600@x2p9.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id VAA23113 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 162 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: No comments Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:28:42 -0500 Kyle, You are not making me feel better. I am well within the fallout zone of even a moderate nuclear explosion in your basement (or your friends). Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 22:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["439" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "23:44:38" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "16" "starship-design: X-rays and voltage" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA11155 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:44:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA11144 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:44:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-72.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-115.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.115]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA11108; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 01:44:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D456D5.5235@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 438 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl Subject: starship-design: X-rays and voltage Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:44:38 -0700 Hello Timothy and SSD group: I have a question: Will 200,000 VDC with a current of 1000 microamperes produce dangerous/deadly radiation? If anyone knows how much, please tell me. Also if anyone knows how much shielding will be necessary, or how far away to be, that would be helpful. Will quick termination of voltage be dangerous? Why is the general thought: Kyle's building a doomsday weapon? I'm not _trying_ to. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 21 22:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["984" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "22:57:38" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "30" "starship-design: X-rays and voltage" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA13524 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:57:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA13513 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:57:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts6-line12.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.42]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA16399; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:56:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id WAA22644; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:57:38 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707220557.WAA22644@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33D456D5.5235@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33D456D5.5235@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 983 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: X-rays and voltage Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:57:38 -0700 kyle writes: > Hello Timothy and SSD group: > > I have a question: > > Will 200,000 VDC with a current of 1000 microamperes produce > dangerous/deadly radiation? Depends on how you use it. That's only 200 watts, but it could produce a pretty good X-ray or microwave flux. Or if you create ultraviolet you could give yourself a sunburn. Or it could give you a nasty shock. Although Ohm's law says that you're pumping this into a 200 megohm device, which is a pretty high resistance. > If anyone knows how much, please tell me. > Also if anyone knows how much shielding will be necessary, or how far > away to be, that would be helpful. > > Will quick termination of voltage be dangerous? Again, it all depends on exactly what you're doing. There's no way to answer the question without knowing what you're putting the electricity into. > Why is the general thought: Kyle's building a doomsday weapon? I'm not > _trying_ to. Kids, don't try this at home :-) From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 03:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["837" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "12:04:42" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "24" "starship-design: Mailer problems" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id DAA06730 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:10:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id DAA06693 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:09:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqbtb-000GpVC; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:10:19 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 836 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Mailer problems Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:04:42 +0100 Lee, You wrote >Kyle and Zenon, > >Kyle, could you please find a mail editor that is not a text attachment device? It is like you are coming through a bulletin board system and I know there are plenty of on line systems in your area, I'm in your area. It is real hard to quote you when all I get is a text attachment, it takes a lot of cut and paste activity, and I have to work for a living, I DON'T have the time. Well, I've the feeling that you've an old or simple Email programme. If I reply letters to you and my Email-programme adds quotation marks > then the above is the result. (Only one quote per sentence instead of per line) The reason that Kyle's letters are attached when you receive them is likely because he uses "charset = koi8-r" in his netscape mailer. Hime changing to a more regualar font might help. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 03:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2185" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "12:04:36" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "49" "Re: starship-design: No comments" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id DAA06801 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:10:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id DAA06774 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:10:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqbtW-000GpSC; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:10:14 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2184 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: No comments Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:04:36 +0100 Kyle, >I didn't think we discussed monopoles in private, just DST's (which I'm >leery to test, due to the X-rays. Maybe if I did it from a distance I >would be safe? Certainly saver, X-rays are tricky, there is no way to be sure unless you have a measurement tool or shield the source with something like leadplates. >I'll send my design diagrams to everyone on SSD as soon as I can. I >assure you, I'll send them at latest, by tommorow. Well, if you can create a clear "data-sheet" in such a short time, that's fine. However if you need more time, I'd rather see you take that time instead of showing us something that is not finished. >>Furthermore, you should have responded to my possible explanation for your >>measured effect. > >I thought it was self-answerable: I placed the compass near the device, >and the needle reversed direction, with the north end pointing towards >the device. If I placed the compass on the other side, it reversed >again, the same way. I tried with angles, circling the device, on >top,underneath, and nowhere did the south end stay towards the device. >Maybe even if its not a monopole, it might still have a useful purpose. OK, more concrete, I'd have expected that you ensured me that you took special care not to miss even small parts of the surface. Even now mentioning "circling the device" helps me reassure that you did more than a few unconnected measurements. I'm interested though how you measured on top and underneath. Did you rotate the device so that you could measure once again in the horizontal plane, or do you have a 3 dimensional compass? >> And when I think back to the private mailing, you weren't really bothered by >> the fact, that the effect you wanted to measure was not clearly measurable >> the way you did. > >Afraid I don't understand what you mean... Well, you wanted to measure antigravity while using a device that created a magnetic field also. If I understood correctly you were not able to know what part of the force was caused by magnetivity and what part by gravity. Your answer to this remark didn't really address the problem, and made me believe that you wanted to continue regardless. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 03:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["500" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "12:04:39" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "18" "RE: starship-design: magnetic monopoles" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id DAA06854 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:11:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id DAA06835 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:11:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqbtY-000GpQC; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:10:16 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 499 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: magnetic monopoles Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:04:39 +0100 Lee, >If you simply wait a little while you will find that your spherical dipole will >quickly realign its magnetic fields to produce two EXTERNAL magnetic poles. ANY >groups of magnets that are truly joined (fused) into a single magnet show this >property. Hmmm, do all magnetic spins in a iron bar line up to Earth's magnetic field if you wait long enough? I used to think that if that this process depends on the strenght of the magnets: If they are too strong, they won't change. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 03:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["265" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "12:04:41" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "12" "RE: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id DAA06977 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:12:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id DAA06963 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:12:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqbta-000GpTC; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:10:18 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 264 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Black holes: a mystery Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:04:41 +0100 Lee, You wrote: >I would rather believe in the rubber sheet than gravitons "communicating", >next you will be claming they are intelligent... Yes, I ment to change that into "interacting", but probably forgot that nice word when I finished the letter. Tim From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 05:03 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["535" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "14:02:41" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "15" "RE: starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA18153 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 05:03:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA18011 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 05:03:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id OAA08252; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:02:41 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707221202.OAA08252@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 534 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: RE: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:02:41 +0200 (MET DST) > From: "L. Parker" > > Zenon, in regards to: > > >I still say this: No one has propelled a macroscopic object up to near > >99.999+ lightspeed, with an inboard propulsion system, and seen what > >happened. As Steve pointed out, actions on the quantum level don't > >necessarily apply to the material world. Who knows? Maybe the limit on > >material objects (unlikely) is 50%C. As said: show me the evidence. > Sorry, Lee, this is the wrong attribution - the above was written by Kyle, not by me. -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 05:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2071" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "14:35:54" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "49" "RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA22076 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 05:36:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA22061 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 05:36:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id OAA08330; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:35:54 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707221235.OAA08330@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2070 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:35:54 +0200 (MET DST) > From lparker@cacaphony.net Tue Jul 22 04:40:48 1997 > To: "'Zenon Kulpa'" > > Jim and Zenon, > You addressed it to Jim and Zenenon, but as the header shows, you sent it only to me... I am sending my reply to the list, since you ask at the end "Anyone care to comment?"... > In rergards to shielding the cargo aeas of sail powered craft I think > you are worrying too much. > I am not worrying about it. Somebody else worried, and I had only pointed out that it is sufficient, if at all, to screen the payload with a small sail, assuming implicitly that if the beam does not burn the main sail, it cannot burn the small one too (exactly as you write below). > I seem to remember that Forward performed all > of these calculations. I will look them up to be sure. But, anything > with sufficient power to require a lot of shielding on the cargo will > MELT THE SAIL. Ideally, the sail geometry can be varied with time to > maintain constant thrust from a decreasing amount of power per unit of > sail area or we can plan on increasing the amount of power that is > beamed over a period of time. Either way, we just refrain from beaming > TOO much power at the sail. > Something just occurred to me (again) in light of recent discussions > regarding the impact of interstellar hydrogen on the sail, it seems to > me that there is a "terminal velocity" where the pressure from the > photons impactine the back of the sail will exactly balance the pressure > of the hydrogen impacting the front of the sail at relativistic > velocities. This point is probably well short of the speed of light > which would severely limit the usefuleness of sails. I can't recall > having seen any calculations along these lines. Anyone care to comment? > That seems an important observation. My guess is that even more restrictive on the sail speed would be the physical damage inflicted on the sail by the interstellar medium (even the hydrogen atoms, but also other debris, like dust). You cannot shield the entire sail... -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 06:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["295" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "09:20:08" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "13" "starship-design: JIm's Home Page" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA27467 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 06:18:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA27417 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 06:18:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JhN08905; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:18:14 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970722.092009.9158.1.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-2,4-11 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 294 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: JIm's Home Page Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:20:08 -0400 Hi again, My page had some problem with the guestbook, but that seems to be fixed. Drop by, My LIT link is getting lonesome. Looking forward to input, links, etc. Back with some SD stuff later today. Jim I FEEL THE NEED, THE NEED FOR EXPEDITIOUS VELOCITY!!!!!!!!!!! Pinky and the Brain From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 06:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1137" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "09:51:24" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "30" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA01787 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 06:50:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA01730 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 06:50:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JsR08905; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:48:28 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970722.095124.9158.2.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707221235.OAA08330@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-24,27-28 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1136 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:51:24 -0400 On Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:35:54 +0200 (MET DST) Zenon Kulpa writes: >> Something just occurred to me (again) in light of recent discussions > >> regarding the impact of interstellar hydrogen on the sail, it seems >to >> me that there is a "terminal velocity" where the pressure from the >> photons impactine the back of the sail will exactly balance the >pressure >> of the hydrogen impacting the front of the sail at relativistic >> velocities. This point is probably well short of the speed of light >> which would severely limit the usefuleness of sails. I can't recall >> having seen any calculations along these lines. Anyone care to >comment? >> >That seems an important observation. >My guess is that even more restrictive on the sail speed >would be the physical damage inflicted on the sail by the >interstellar medium (even the hydrogen atoms, but also other debris, >like dust). You cannot shield the entire sail... > >-- Zenon Good points, reminds me that the Bussard Ramjet was expected to have the same drawback with drag interaction between the scoop field and the dust and gas. > From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 07:38 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["383" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "10:40:12" "-0400" "Bakelaar" "bakelaar@injersey.com" nil "10" "starship-design: members homepages..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA10459 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:38:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nj5.injersey.com (root@nj5.injersey.com [206.139.48.252]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA10416 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:38:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pbakelaar.exit109.com (ppp053-tmrv.injersey.com [206.139.59.53]) by nj5.injersey.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id KAA16329 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:40:12 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707221440.KAA16329@nj5.injersey.com> X-Sender: bakelaar@injersey.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Bakelaar Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 382 From: Bakelaar Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: members homepages... Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:40:12 -0400 (EDT) hey guys, i was just wondering if anyone has a current list of all the members homepages (those who have homepages anyway)? if not, could everyone please send me their url and i will put the list up on the web? thanks, ben... (sorry i havent been active much lately, you guys are having discussions WAY beyond me, i dont even understand what your talkin about half the time :D) From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 07:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["792" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "10:50:31" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "28" "Re: starship-design: members homepages..." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA12527 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:48:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA12510 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:48:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id KKV08905; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:48:11 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970722.105032.3454.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707221440.KAA16329@nj5.injersey.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-13,15-22,24-26 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 791 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: members homepages... Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:50:31 -0400 On Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:40:12 -0400 (EDT) Bakelaar writes: >hey guys, i was just wondering if anyone has a current >list of all the members homepages (those who have homepages >anyway)? if not, could everyone please send me their url >and i will put the list up on the web? thanks, ben... > >(sorry i havent been active much lately, you guys are having > discussions WAY beyond me, i dont even understand what your > talkin about half the time :D) > > Don't feel too bad, sometimes it looks like we don't know what we're talking about either (chuckle). ;););) Anyway, here's my URL http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/lab/3403 Check it out! By the way, check out www.geocities.com and get a FREE WEB PAGE, yep really, no kidding, its really free. Jim Clem From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 08:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3391" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "20:18:36" "-0700" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "79" "BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [\"Kevin 'Tex' Houston\" ]" "^Resent-Date:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA09318 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:51:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA09307 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:51:35 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <199707220318.UAA11100@darkwing.uoregon.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 3390 Resent-Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:51:35 -0700 (PDT) Resent-From: Steve VanDevender Resent-Message-Id: <199707221551.IAA09307@darkwing.uoregon.edu> Resent-To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu From: stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Sender: owner-starship-design Subject: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from ["Kevin 'Tex' Houston" ] Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:18:36 -0700 (PDT) >From stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Mon Jul 21 20:18:34 1997 Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id UAA11077 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:18:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pub-15-c-166.dialup.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 21 Jul 97 22:18:32 -0500 Message-ID: <33D415D2.4270@email.umn.edu> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:07:14 -0500 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Reply-To: hous0042@email.umn.edu X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Starship design group Subject: Re: Aliens, why haven't they contact us? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit jimaclem@juno.com wrote: > > On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:42:30 -0400 (EDT) KellySt@aol.com writes: > > > >No way to know. Can't even know anything basic about their celular > >construction or chemistry. > > > > Just a thought to consider folks. All living organisms on this planet, > including viruses have DNA and RNA constructed from the same four > proteins, adenine, cytosine, guanine and tyrosine. (And I do mean ALL > life forms on this planet, from viruses to trees to us). The chances > that an alien microbe, or anything else, would use these same proteins > seem rather small, thus rendering them and us relatively harmless to each > other since we cant read each other's cellular codes. > > Jim BZZZT! Thank you for playing. ;) (sorry, I couldn't help it, I don't often come across a subject that i know a whole lot about in this group, but when I do, I pounce) First, the observational evidence. Large gas coulds in interstellar space have been seen which contain each of these nucleotides in enough abudance to outwiegh the earth. Second the chemical evidence. when simple molecules like ammonia, methane, hydrogen cyanide etc are bombarded with UV, (in the lab here on earth) They often breakdown into these very molecules Third, the theoretical/thermodynamic reasons. Left-handed amino acids and right handed sugars are slightly, (theoretically) more thermodynamically stable. by being in a lower thermodynamic state, these chiralities (fancy word for mirror image) tend to be favored in chemical reactions. Thus any organism that learned to eat carbo-hyddrates would, through evolution, be drawn toward using D-glucose (dextrose) and would thus need proteins (if that's what they used) with a left-handed structure In short, any life that eats sugars and uses proteins, is VERY likely to eat 'our' kind of sugar and use 'our' kind of protein. Chemical codes are a different matter, and would be a triple-edged sword, while some alien microbe might be totally stymied by our chemistry, Others would find it no problem, and some other kid of life might be harmful to us as a side effect of thier own chemistry. Consider a life form that exhaled hydrogen cyanide for example: While they would be adapted to it, we would die in short order. perhaps even killing them with our exhaled carbon dioxide or water. -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 08:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3602" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "20:18:39" "-0700" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "90" "BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [\"Kevin 'Tex' Houston\" ]" "^Resent-Date:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA09557 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:52:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA09543 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:52:44 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <199707220318.UAA11121@darkwing.uoregon.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 3601 Resent-Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:52:44 -0700 (PDT) Resent-From: Steve VanDevender Resent-Message-Id: <199707221552.IAA09543@darkwing.uoregon.edu> Resent-To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu From: stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Sender: owner-starship-design Subject: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from ["Kevin 'Tex' Houston" ] Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:18:39 -0700 (PDT) >From stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Mon Jul 21 20:18:37 1997 Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id UAA11102 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:18:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pub-15-c-166.dialup.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 21 Jul 97 22:18:35 -0500 Message-ID: <33D42226.44CB@email.umn.edu> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:59:50 -0500 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Reply-To: hous0042@email.umn.edu X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Starship design group Subject: Solutions to some of the beaming problems and a new idea References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Timothy van der Linden wrote to Jim: > > You touched the subject beaming (of either a probe or the starship itself). > I'd like you to read a rough summary of all the problems that this group has > come up with so far. > > You should be able to find it here: > > http://www1.tip.nl/~t596675/sd/beaming/beam.html > Nice job Tim. here are some solution ideas for your problems list. #9 redshift causes the momentum to decrease: #15 doppler shift changes reflectivity: Sweeping the beam into higher frequencies, and then back down, as the mission prgresses; would allow the ship to receive it energy at a near constant frequency. Any slight deviations should be within tolerance. #14. communication: Using different wavelengths of EM for engine, comm. for example, if you are using Maser for power, then you should use a laser to communicate. The laser guide beaming messages back to earth could be made of plastic or glass which would be totally immune to microwaves #16 acceleration means limited beaming time. As we say in the Computer Biz, "That's not a bug, that's a feature." This reduces the amount of time the puclic needs to think about all that energy being poured out into space, and decreases the likelyhood that someone will turn the beam off halfway through the mission. either by activly flipping the switch or slow politically motivated starvation. also, since the time rate of the crew slows down near turn-around, they should preceive constant power (J) (providing the beam also sweeps up in frequency) 18 could be solved by moving several large asteroids (or lots of smaller ones) into a proper orbit around the sun. (one that is normal to the line connecting the two suns.) since we'll have to build this thing out in space, I'll bet we have a lot of slag/waste that could be used to 'anchor' the transmitter in place. a conventional rocket or ion engine would be much better for conteracting the beams thrust. ---------start new idea ------------------- Each transmitter could be a stationary fusion rocket with the beam pointed in one direction, and the fusion exhaust (at very low speed) pointed in the other. Since the whole thing is stationary, it could be refueled periodicly by robot tenders. The fusion motor could tap most of the kinetic/thermal energy of the fusion products to provide electricity to power the transmitter, with a little left over kinetic energy and a fair amount of mass to provide a counter balancing force. ---------end new idea -------comments?----- -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 08:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5488" "Mon" "21" "July" "1997" "21:37:42" "-0700" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "153" "BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [\"Kevin 'Tex' Houston\" ]" "^Resent-Date:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA09629 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:53:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA09616 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:53:04 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <199707220437.VAA27938@darkwing.uoregon.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 5487 Resent-Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:53:04 -0700 (PDT) Resent-From: Steve VanDevender Resent-Message-Id: <199707221553.IAA09616@darkwing.uoregon.edu> Resent-To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu From: stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Sender: owner-starship-design Subject: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from ["Kevin 'Tex' Houston" ] Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:37:42 -0700 (PDT) >From stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Mon Jul 21 21:37:40 1997 Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id VAA27912 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:37:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pub-15-c-166.dialup.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 21 Jul 97 23:37:38 -0500 Message-ID: <33D437F7.6512@email.umn.edu> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:32:55 -0500 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Reply-To: hous0042@email.umn.edu X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Starship design group Subject: Gravity and black holes.... eeep! Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ok, here's the deal.... I've been thinking about something ever since I was Kyle's age, I've never been able to learn enough math/physics to really take a stab at it, and it is so against standard physical model that to even discuss it would, I fear, make me look stupid. So i never even mentioned the ideas in this forum. That said however, a few recent missives from lee have sent me thinking again, and kyle's flights of fancy have given me the courage to speak up. The idea is one that explains gravity, the speed of light, Lorentz contractions, and black holes...... like i said, eeep! Note: Because I lack the required mathmatics background, there will be much hand-waving. The basic idea is that gravity is produced by our space-time's deceleration in a spatial fourth dimension. Consider a two dimensional universe in the shape of a sphere. From some initial explosion, it is expanding. but because of tension in the surface, it is slowing down. Now consider a round leaden disk placed on the inside of the sphere. the disk will tend to pull the surface out a little bit, and any lifeforms near the surface of the disk will wonder why they are pulled toward the disk. In fact, they are just sliding down the curved 2-D spacetime. perhaps Einstein was more right than he knew, gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable because gravity *is* (de)acceleration. Now imagine a steel BB rolling around the inside of the sphere. because it is moving in a circle (about the center of sphere which it cannot sense) it also undergoes acceleration in the radial direction. This also causes the surface to bulge out slightly (more so, the faster the BB goes) which would also be interpreted by any nearby lifeforms as a gavitational effect (apparent mass increase in near light-speed objects) Since the BB can't 'see' in the third direction, it must preceive itself traveling in a straight line. At some critical speed however, the BB cannot accelerate any further. To do so would be to rip a hole in the surface of the sphere. as the BB accelerates (by turning on it's rocket engine) it tries to move in a 'straight' (for us 3D observers) line, but is prevented by the universe itself (the sphere). If the tension of the universe's material were much like rubber, then there would little resistance at low speeds, but more and more resistance (exponetially even) at higher speeds. Consider a close up view of the sphere (here represented in cross section). because the Object is 2D also, the curved surface appears straight inside | outside | | \ A I I 'Heavy' object I I / | | | | | here the object has only it's 'rest mass' But as the object travels faster and faster, it beigns to push out the side of the Universe (which is actually curved you'll recall) like so: x | x x | | | \ \ \ \ \ \ A \ \ I A IIIIA I II / I II | I | | / | y | | | y y .25 C .75 C .99999 C final case is a little exaggerated perhaps, but I'm sure you get the idea. you'll also note that the surface (2D speak for space) between points x and y has decreased. for a black hole the surface looks like: | | |____ | | | |---- | | since no amount of pushing against the fabric of space will make you move, you would be stuck inside the hole (after being ripped to shreds by the steep gradient of the event horizon) How likely is this, can a mathmatical model be derived which would refute or support this model. Are there any predictions one could make about such a universe that would be at odds with our own? Or is this like the topological transformed earth where the surface of the earth is mapped to the inside of a sphere and the space towards the center of the sphere becomes increasingly compressed so as to be able to contain all the stars and galaxies. Totally self-consistent, but offering no fundamental insights because it is indistinguishable from reality? -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 09:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["632" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "12:20:23" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "16" "starship-design: New Idea from non member" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA18376 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:20:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA18363 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:20:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id MwX08905; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:19:28 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970722.122148.15790.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-14 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 631 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: New Idea from non member Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:20:23 -0400 ---------start new idea ------------------- Each transmitter could be a stationary fusion rocket with the beam pointed in one direction, and the fusion exhaust (at very low speed) pointed in the other. Since the whole thing is stationary, it could be refueled periodicly by robot tenders. The fusion motor could tap most of the kinetic/thermal energy of the fusion products to provide electricity to power the transmitter, with a little left over kinetic energy and a fair amount of mass to provide a counter balancing force. ---------end new idea -------comments?----- Ooh, I like it! I'll See what I can come up with. Jim From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 09:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["110" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "11:28:39" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "8" "RE: starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA01284 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:58:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA01271 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:58:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p9.gnt.com (x2p28.gnt.com [204.49.68.233]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA11347 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:57:09 -0500 Received: by x2p9.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9696.609E9E40@x2p9.gnt.com>; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:57:06 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9696.609E9E40@x2p9.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 109 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:28:39 -0500 Zenon, My apologies, I was reading his quote in your message, or was it the other way around? Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 11:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["273" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "12:17:13" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" "<33D50738.4A6D@sunherald.infi.net>" "10" "starship-design: X-rays" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA01339 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:17:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA01320 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:17:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-100.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-100.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.100]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA03979 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:17:27 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D50738.4A6D@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 272 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: X-rays Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:17:13 -0700 Greetings: I've thought about it, and don't like the idea of getting cancer, so will the radiation flux be safer if I reduce voltage to 100KVDC with a current of 400microamperes? Would .5 inches of lead shield this? Kyle Mcallister P.S.: I'm not building an atom bomb. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 11:19 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["3885" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "12:19:08" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" "<33D507AB.5A23@sunherald.infi.net>" "90" "Re: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [\"Kevin 'Tex' Houston\" ]" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA01980 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:19:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA01962 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:19:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-100.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-100.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.100]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA02243 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:19:28 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D507AB.5A23@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199707220318.UAA11121@darkwing.uoregon.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 3884 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from ["Kevin 'Tex' Houston" ] Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:19:08 -0700 stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu wrote: > > >From stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Mon Jul 21 20:18:37 1997 > Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) > by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id UAA11102 > for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:18:36 -0700 (PDT) > Received: from pub-15-c-166.dialup.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 21 Jul 97 22:18:35 -0500 > Message-ID: <33D42226.44CB@email.umn.edu> > Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:59:50 -0500 > From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" > Reply-To: hous0042@email.umn.edu > X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) > MIME-Version: 1.0 > To: Starship design group > Subject: Solutions to some of the beaming problems and a new idea > References: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Timothy van der Linden wrote to Jim: > > > > You touched the subject beaming (of either a probe or the starship itself). > > I'd like you to read a rough summary of all the problems that this group has > > come up with so far. > > > > You should be able to find it here: > > > > http://www1.tip.nl/~t596675/sd/beaming/beam.html > > > > Nice job Tim. here are some solution ideas for your problems list. > > #9 redshift causes the momentum to decrease: > #15 doppler shift changes reflectivity: > > Sweeping the beam into higher frequencies, and then back down, as the > mission prgresses; would allow the ship to receive it energy at a near > constant frequency. Any slight deviations should be within tolerance. > > #14. communication: > > Using different wavelengths of EM for engine, comm. > > for example, if you are using Maser for power, then you should use a > laser to communicate. The laser guide beaming messages back to earth > could be made of plastic or glass which would be totally immune to > microwaves > > #16 acceleration means limited beaming time. > > As we say in the Computer Biz, "That's not a bug, that's a feature." > > This reduces the amount of time the puclic needs to think about all that > energy being poured out into space, and decreases the likelyhood that > someone will turn the beam off halfway through the mission. either by > activly flipping the switch or slow politically motivated starvation. > also, since the time rate of the crew slows down near turn-around, they > should preceive constant power (J) (providing the beam also sweeps up in > frequency) > > 18 could be solved by moving several large asteroids (or lots of smaller > ones) into a proper orbit around the sun. (one that is normal to the > line connecting the two suns.) > since we'll have to build this thing out in space, I'll bet we have a > lot of slag/waste that could be used to 'anchor' the transmitter in > place. a conventional rocket or ion engine would be much better for > conteracting the beams thrust. > > ---------start new idea ------------------- > > Each transmitter could be a stationary fusion rocket with the beam > pointed in one direction, and the fusion exhaust (at very low speed) > pointed in the other. Since the whole thing is stationary, it could be > refueled periodicly by robot tenders. The fusion motor could tap most > of the kinetic/thermal energy of the fusion products to provide > electricity to power the transmitter, with a little left over kinetic > energy and a fair amount of mass to provide a counter balancing force. > > ---------end new idea -------comments?----- > > -- > Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html > Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html > "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and > Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein Whats this non-member submission stuff? Kyle From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 11:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["533" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "11:22:29" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "13" "Re: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [\"Kevin 'Tex' Houston\" ]" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA03922 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:22:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA03897; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:22:29 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707221822.LAA03897@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33D507AB.5A23@sunherald.infi.net> References: <199707220318.UAA11121@darkwing.uoregon.edu> <33D507AB.5A23@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 532 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from ["Kevin 'Tex' Houston" ] Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:22:29 -0700 (PDT) kyle writes: > Whats this non-member submission stuff? This is described in the list info file that you should have received, read (and kept!) when you subscribed. People who are not on the starship-design list cannot post to it. If you post from a different email address than the one you subscribed under, then the post will be bounced to me (the list owner). Kevin changed email addresses, and I forwarded his posts that bounced to the list. I have contacted Kevin about it and resubscribed him with his new email address. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 11:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["940" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "13:26:38" "-0500" "Kevin C Houston" "hous0042@tc.umn.edu" nil "30" "starship-design: NON MEMBER?? here's what happened." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA05115 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:26:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id LAA05096 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:26:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from garnet.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Tue, 22 Jul 97 13:26:39 -0500 Received: from localhost by garnet.tc.umn.edu; Tue, 22 Jul 97 13:26:39 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Kevin C Houston Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 939 From: Kevin C Houston Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: NON MEMBER?? here's what happened. Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:26:38 -0500 (CDT) Okay, I recently changed status here at the U. In short my free ride on the U's modem pool was terminated, but I was given the oppourtunity to purchase an account ($30.00 for 3 month, a real deal). As a result, my E-mail address has changed very slightly (although the old one will still work) For those who are maintaining a personal address book of LIT members, here is my info name: Kevin 'Tex' Houston E-mail: hous0042@tc.umn.edu web: http://umn.edu/~hous0042/ I also have another web server, http://wwww.urly-bird.com/ This server has a LIT development site. Anyone wishing to post some web pages (LIT related) may do so free of charge. Just send them to me as an attachment to E-mail and I'll put them up. -------Begin Crass Commercialism------------ If you would like a web site that is not LIT related, let me know, my proces are very reasonable. ;) -------End Crass Comercialism--------------- Kevin 'Tex' Houston From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 11:31 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1222" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "11:31:21" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "32" "starship-design: X-rays" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA06669 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:31:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA06640 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:31:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA15750; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:30:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA24299; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:31:21 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707221831.LAA24299@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33D50738.4A6D@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33D50738.4A6D@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1221 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: X-rays Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:31:21 -0700 kyle writes: > Greetings: > > I've thought about it, and don't like the idea of getting cancer, so > will the radiation flux be safer if I reduce voltage to 100KVDC with a > current of 400microamperes? Would .5 inches of lead shield this? > > Kyle Mcallister Kyle, if you don't tell us what you are building we can't tell you anything about possible risks. If you use the voltage to put a steady current through a resistive device, no radiation will be produced. If you use the voltage to accelerate electrons to collide with a target, you might produce X-rays (assuming you do it right). If you use the voltage to power a microwave oscillator, you'd produce microwaves. If you touch the wires, you'd get a pretty bad jolt (possibly fatal if the current goes through your heart). Telling anyone only the voltage and amperage you're using IS NOT ENOUGH. I think that rather than asking us you should be consulting with a qualified electrician. In any case this is becoming unrelated to the topics this list is for. Please take your question to a more relevant forum. > P.S.: I'm not building an atom bomb. Well, duh. 200W is not anywhere near enough to produce a big explosion, and 40W isn't either. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 11:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["892" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "20:54:09" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "25" "RE: starship-design: PseudoScience?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA15351 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:54:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA15186 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:54:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id UAA08715; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:54:09 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707221854.UAA08715@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 891 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: RE: starship-design: PseudoScience? Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:54:09 +0200 (MET DST) > From: "L. Parker" > > Zenon, > > My apologies, I was reading his quote in your message, or was it the > other way around? > His quote in my message. My reply was: I am not a specialist in relativity, so I go by the opinion of specialists in that field. Steve is one (at leat far better than me ;-). I may say, that there is at least a "not forbidden" evidence - current physical theories of space-time are tested at very many points in the range of their applicability, and nothing in them prevents the possibility of macroscopic objects flying near light speed. And being contracted/time dilated at that. Of course, we cannot be sure. But because it fits into a theory otherwise very well tested, we can be many times more sure that it will work that way than not - the latter claim backed only by a word of honor of certain Kyle Mcallister ;-) -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 13:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2582" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "22:36:03" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "59" "RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA28162 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:41:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA28107 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:41:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqlkb-000JePC; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:41:41 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2581 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:36:03 +0100 Lee, Hoping that Zenon did quote your entire letter, here my comment > In rergards to shielding the cargo aeas of sail powered craft I think > you are worrying too much. In my summary it is just on of many points. It is a problem that may arise, but surely not the biggest. > I seem to remember that Forward performed all > of these calculations. I will look them up to be sure. But, anything > with sufficient power to require a lot of shielding on the cargo will > MELT THE SAIL. True, but you got me thinking about something... I think most of us are still assuming that the sail is a mirror. This can be true, but if so, it will not decelerate the ship unless we can make a retro-mirror (or plasma-cloud mirror) work. (Kelly would you care writing a short explanation about the plasma-cloud mirror for the new members?) The beaming concept looks nice, but its most essential problem is deceleration. Using the "sail" as an energy collector to power some engine (Kelly has a "simple" solution for that too) is the only option besides a retro-reflection-mirror. > Something just occurred to me (again) in light of recent discussions > regarding the impact of interstellar hydrogen on the sail, it seems to > me that there is a "terminal velocity" where the pressure from the > photons impactine the back of the sail will exactly balance the pressure > of the hydrogen impacting the front of the sail at relativistic > velocities. This point is probably well short of the speed of light > which would severely limit the usefuleness of sails. I can't recall > having seen any calculations along these lines. Anyone care to comment? The power density of the beam should compensate for this. I believe that I did some calculations when we thought about scooping hydrogen. I remember that even using rediculous big scoops we could not scoop more than a few 100 kg. To this problem more transparant: Even if we encounter as much mass per second as the ship itself, it will only half the acceleration. And if we encounter that much mass, then I'd rather not be in that ship. Zenon worried: That seems an important observation. My guess is that even more restrictive on the sail speed would be the physical damage inflicted on the sail by the interstellar medium (even the hydrogen atoms, but also other debris, like dust). You cannot shield the entire sail... My suggestion was to use part of the beam to blow clear the path. We may re-route a part of the beam to a more divergent beam which will push the few atoms in our way to the side. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 15:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["768" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "00:15:39" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "21" "Re: starship-design: NON MEMBER?? here's what happened." "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA11055 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:20:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA11034 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:20:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqnIy-000F1TC; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:21:16 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 767 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: NON MEMBER?? here's what happened. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:15:39 +0100 Kevin, >I recently changed status here at the U. In short my free ride on the U's >modem pool was terminated, but I was given the oppourtunity to purchase an >account ($30.00 for 3 month, a real deal). As a result, my E-mail address >has changed very slightly (although the old one will still work) Congratulations, now that decided to actually pay for writing to this group, you have become our honered member of the week ;))) >-------Begin Crass Commercialism------------ >If you would like a web site that is not LIT related, let me know, my >proces are very reasonable. ;) >-------End Crass Comercialism--------------- Well, since you are on of our sponsors, you get a few "out of jail for free" tickets, for commercial spamming on this list :) Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 15:21 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2862" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "00:15:33" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "69" "starship-design: Kevin's reply about Tim's summary" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA11285 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:21:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA11254 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:21:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqnIt-000F1MC; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:21:11 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2861 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Kevin's reply about Tim's summary Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:15:33 +0100 >Nice job Tim. here are some solution ideas for your problems list. Thanks, it should appeal to you most, since you've a beamed ship design. >#9 redshift causes the momentum to decrease: >#15 doppler shift changes reflectivity: > >Sweeping the beam into higher frequencies, and then back down, as the >mission prgresses; would allow the ship to receive it energy at a near >constant frequency. Any slight deviations should be within tolerance. True, I guess we figured that out before, but I will add it to the summary. The only trouble I see with this is that the beaming station needs tunable masers/lasers. I know this is possible, but doesn't make the design easier. Of course, increasing the frequency will still result in decrease of momentum, only the people on the starship won't notice. >#14. communication: > >Using different wavelengths of EM for engine, comm. > >for example, if you are using Maser for power, then you should use a >laser to communicate. The laser guide beaming messages back to earth >could be made of plastic or glass which would be totally immune to >microwaves Yes, that's true, I wonder why I didn't think of that a long time ago. >#16 acceleration means limited beaming time. > >As we say in the Computer Biz, "That's not a bug, that's a feature." That indeed is a way of looking at it. >18 could be solved by moving several large asteroids (or lots of smaller >ones) into a proper orbit around the sun. (one that is normal to the >line connecting the two suns.) >since we'll have to build this thing out in space, I'll bet we have a >lot of slag/waste that could be used to 'anchor' the transmitter in >place. a conventional rocket or ion engine would be much better for >conteracting the beams thrust. Yes, I'll add using a mass momentum engine. >---------start new idea ------------------- > >Each transmitter could be a stationary fusion rocket with the beam >pointed in one direction, and the fusion exhaust (at very low speed) >pointed in the other. Since the whole thing is stationary, it could be >refueled periodicly by robot tenders. The fusion motor could tap most >of the kinetic/thermal energy of the fusion products to provide >electricity to power the transmitter, with a little left over kinetic >energy and a fair amount of mass to provide a counter balancing force. > >---------end new idea -------comments?----- The idea is nice, although supplying millions of fusion reactors may not be something you'd like to do. We'll use a total of say 1E18 Watt, that's roughly 5000 kg of fusion fuel per second. Or about 4 times the weight of the ship per day. (Eh, I'm assuming that we use the beam for a 1E8 kg ship, not for a probe) I'd like the simplicity of solarcells better, even though they will be much more plenty. In general they will be easier to build and need less care. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 15:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["656" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "00:15:36" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "20" "Re: starship-design: X-rays" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA11512 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:22:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA11481 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:21:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqnIw-000F1QC; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:21:14 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 655 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: X-rays Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:15:36 +0100 Kyle, >I've thought about it, and don't like the idea of getting cancer, so >will the radiation flux be safer if I reduce voltage to 100KVDC with a >current of 400microamperes? Would .5 inches of lead shield this? If my data is correct, that should weaken the intensity by more than 5,000 times. Less than (0.1 absorbed Joule)/(kg of body weight) is assumed to do no direct harm. But once again the less the better. Note: I use Joule, that's power integrated over time. Watching your experiment for shorter periods makes it less harmful. As Steve mentioned, and like I wrote you before, if there are no sparks, there also will be few Xrays. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 19:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["284" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "20:42:20" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "12" "RE: starship-design: X-rays" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA27292 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:33:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA27264 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:33:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p44.gnt.com (x2p44.gnt.com [204.49.68.249]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA14036 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:33:32 -0500 Received: by x2p44.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC96E6.E2D9CBA0@x2p44.gnt.com>; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:33:25 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC96E6.E2D9CBA0@x2p44.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 283 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: X-rays Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:42:20 -0500 Kyle, Unless you have access to magnetron tubes capable of generating x-rays you don't need to worry about radiation, there is nothing intrinsically radioactive about the energy levels you were discussing. Lee P.S. Did I miss something? Why are you trying to generate x-rays? From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 19:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["654" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "22:35:10" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA27461 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:35:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA27451 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:35:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA21086; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:35:10 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970722223509_1961745478@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 653 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:35:10 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/21/97 7:29:19 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Regarding problem 12b: > >I'd wanted to mention the Euler instability (didn't know it had a name >though), but assumed that if we could not control the sail, then using any >sail-design would be a mistake. >Writing this I realize that we may be able to control a sail-design if it >has less inherent instability. > >My best guess is to use a parashute-model and shield the relative small payload. > > >Timothy One alternative is to have fleets of little tugs sheparding the sail into shape. Not very eligant, but an option worth consideration. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 20:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2103" "Tue" "22" "July" "1997" "21:34:53" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "45" "RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA13656 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:53:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA13644 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:53:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p44.gnt.com (x2p32.gnt.com [204.49.68.237]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA20465 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:53:44 -0500 Received: by x2p44.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC96F2.19553D80@x2p44.gnt.com>; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:53:41 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC96F2.19553D80@x2p44.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2102 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:34:53 -0500 Timothy, > The beaming concept looks nice, but its most essential problem is > deceleration. Using the "sail" as an energy collector to power some engine > (Kelly has a "simple" solution for that too) is the only option besides a > retro-reflection-mirror. [L. Parker] I was assuming that the first trip would use some other method of braking, perhaps a combination of magnetic and solar sail braking. Subsequent trips could use lasers built by the first trip. > The power density of the beam should compensate for this. I believe that I > did some calculations when we thought about scooping hydrogen. I remember > that even using rediculous big scoops we could not scoop more than a few 100 kg. > > To this problem more transparant: Even if we encounter as much mass per > second as the ship itself, it will only half the acceleration. > And if we encounter that much mass, then I'd rather not be in that ship. [L. Parker] Transmitted power density is measured in one frame of reference but impact density on the leading edge of the sail is in a different frame of reference where "mass per second" is measured with a relativistic shift. You will have a laser behind you and the equivalent of an x-ray laser in front of you (I know, its not really a laser because it isn't coherent) for that matter there will be an opposite relativistic shift on the beam which will further lower the terminal velocity. > My suggestion was to use part of the beam to blow clear the path. We may > re-route a part of the beam to a more divergent beam which will push the few > atoms in our way to the side. [L. Parker] Not a bad idea. They use a similar technique with high energy lasers in the military, a short burst in front of the main shot creates a sort of temporary vacuum which reduces beam scattering in atmosphere. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- When I die, I want to go peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather... not screaming like the people in his car. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 21:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["763" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "00:01:09" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "21" "Re: starship-design: New Idea from non member" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA14607 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:01:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout14.mail.aol.com (emout14.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA14592 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:01:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout14.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA27806; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:01:09 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970723000103_138752014@emout14.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 762 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: New Idea from non member Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:01:09 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/22/97 3:46:35 PM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >---------start new idea ------------------- > >Each transmitter could be a stationary fusion rocket with the beam >pointed in one direction, and the fusion exhaust (at very low speed) >pointed in the other. Since the whole thing is stationary, it could be >refueled periodicly by robot tenders. The fusion motor could tap most >of the kinetic/thermal energy of the fusion products to provide >electricity to power the transmitter, with a little left over kinetic >energy and a fair amount of mass to provide a counter balancing force. > >---------end new idea -------comments?----- Cool, that would also get around the problem of the transmiters moving during the transmition period. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 22 21:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1312" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "00:01:29" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "36" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA14651 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:02:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA14630 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:01:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA28170; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:01:29 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970723000107_257694950@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1311 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:01:29 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/22/97 7:51:15 AM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >On Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:35:54 +0200 (MET DST) Zenon Kulpa > writes: > >>> Something just occurred to me (again) in light of recent discussions >> >>> regarding the impact of interstellar hydrogen on the sail, it seems >>to >>> me that there is a "terminal velocity" where the pressure from the >>> photons impactine the back of the sail will exactly balance the >>pressure >>> of the hydrogen impacting the front of the sail at relativistic >>> velocities. This point is probably well short of the speed of light >>> which would severely limit the usefuleness of sails. I can't recall >>> having seen any calculations along these lines. Anyone care to >>comment? >>> >>That seems an important observation. >>My guess is that even more restrictive on the sail speed >>would be the physical damage inflicted on the sail by the >>interstellar medium (even the hydrogen atoms, but also other debris, >>like dust). You cannot shield the entire sail... >> >>-- Zenon > >Good points, reminds me that the Bussard Ramjet was expected to have the >same drawback with drag interaction between the scoop field and the dust >and gas. I beleave it was thought the drag would always exceed the thrust. Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 02:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1131" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "11:18:06" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "33" "starship-design: Re: The Device" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA08512 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 02:23:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA08418 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 02:23:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wqxe2-000Hj9C; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:23:42 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1130 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: The Device Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:18:06 +0100 Sorry Kyle, I'm making a mess of things. By now you've this letter in triplet. Kyle, Clearly your design is trying to close in the magnetic field. And as a result you measurements acknowledge that. The only logical place for the magnetic field to escape (or better to complete the loop), are the seams where the triangles connect. Actually not only the seams leak, but the whole tetrahedron: Only the seams will show a concentrated southpoles, but the northpoles (the triangles themselves) will be weakened by part of the southpoles of the "opposite" electromagnet. (They are of course is not a real opposite in a tetrahedron, but at least something close to it.) To simplify your design: It exists of two coils, that are glued at the ends of a short tube (more like a ring). The coils will try to cancel one another out, but don't succeed for 100%, the percentage that is left over will leak through the wall of the tube, which has only a small surface compared to the whole design and therefore is easy to miss. Try measuring the seams as well as you can, you must notice some wiggeling of the compass there. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 05:56 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["8261" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "14:55:23" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "229" "starship-design: Foresight Institute Electronic Newsletter" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA11501 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 05:56:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA11473 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 05:56:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id OAA09570; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:55:23 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707231255.OAA09570@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 8260 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: starship-design: Foresight Institute Electronic Newsletter Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:55:23 +0200 (MET DST) Hope it may be of interest to you, -- Zenon ----- Begin Included Message ----- >From office@foresight.org Wed Jul 23 00:16:08 1997 Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:52:48 -0800 To: office@foresight.org (Elaine Tschorn) From: Elaine Tschorn Subject: Foresight Institute Electronic Newsletter Content-Length: 7892 Foresight Institute Electronic Newsletter #2 July 23, 1997 This is a quarterly email update on nanotechnology from Foresight Institute. To stop receiving it, send email to inform@foresight.org. In this issue: ** Company founded to develop an assembler ** Growing mainstream acceptance of nanotechnology allows Foresight to focus on next stage goals ** ** Promising new approach to enhancing the World Wide Web ** ** Unbounding the Future available online ** ** Recent Foresight news ** ======================= ** Company founded to develop an assembler ** -Zyvex, the first nanotechnology company with the explicit goal of developing an assembler, has been founded. Read the story in Update 29: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.3.html#anchor588503 For more details, visit the Zyvex web site: http://www.zyvex.com/ ======================= ** Growing mainstream acceptance of nanotechnology allows Foresight to focus on next stage goals ** Examples of the growing mainstream acceptance of nanotechnology include the following: -Nanotechnology researchers gain recognition: Newsweek names K. Eric Drexler to its "Century Club": http://www.foresight.org/News/News1.html#anchor272496 Discover Magazine awards for technological innovation recognize nanotechnology researchers James Gimzewski and Nadrian C. Seeman in the category of "emerging technology": http://www.foresight.org/News/News1.html#anchor532599 http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.1.html#anchor796573 For more details on how the media are responding to progress in nanotechnology, see two most recent Media Watch columns: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update28/Update28.4.html#anchor1159804 http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.4.html#anchor436046 ---------- -Leading researchers to speak at Fifth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology in November: For details, read the articles at: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update28/Update28.1.html#anchor218362 http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.1.html#anchor413407 The home page for the conference is at: http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Nano5.html A "Tutorial on Critical Enabling Technologies for Nanotechnology" will be available immediately before the conference: http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Tutorial.html Registration information for the Conference and Tutorial, including online registration, is available at: http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/RegInfo.html Beginning next month, abstracts accepted for the conference will be posted at: http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Abstracts/ ---------- -Accelerating progress in enabling technologies: The best overview of the progress toward nanotechnology along a broad range of fronts can be obtained from Jeffrey Soreff's "Recent Progress" columns in the Foresight Update. His two most recent columns can be found at: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update28/Update28.3.html#anchor325808 http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.3.html#anchor711279 Topics covered include: Advances in Parallel Techniques, Advances in Sequential Techniques, Catalytic Structures, Mechanochemistry, Components and Assembly Techniques, Novel Features, Protein Motors, Single Molecule Diagnostics, Single Electronics in Esprit, Abzymes ---------- -These "mainstream" endorsements of nanotechnology have caused Foresight's leadership to conclude that it is time for Foresight to take on the more long range issues of the effects of mature nanotechnology upon society and individuals. See: Chris Peterson's "Inside Foresight" column: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.2.html#anchor1010717 Report on Eric Drexler's talk at the May 1997 Senior Associates Gathering: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.2.html#anchor205008 ======================= ** Promising new approach to enhancing the World Wide Web ** Excellent results from a new approach to Foresight's project to enhance the World Wide Web to develop a true hypertext publishing system to facilitate evolving social knowledge: http://www.foresight.org/WebEnhance/index.html#anchor360718 http://www.foresight.org/WebEnhance/M1Plus.html An overview of this project is available at: http://www.foresight.org/WebEnhance/index.html More background is available at: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.2.html#anchor53292 ======================= ** Unbounding the Future available online ** "The nanotechnology book to give your mom," Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution, has been prepared for the Web. We have not finished all the linking and other finishing details, but you can access the book at: http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/index.html ======================= ** Recent Foresight news ** -Since our first electronic newsletter this past March was sent, two issues of Foresight Update have been published. Table of Contents of Update 28: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update28/Update28.1.html Table of Contents of Update 29: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/index.html A few headlines from these issues: Breakthrough-Scale Design For a Molecular Robotic "Hand": http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update28/Update28.1.html#anchor1228823 Award For Leading Nanotechnology Student: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update28/Update28.2.html#anchor372353 Changes in Foresight Board: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update28/Update28.2.html#anchor585042 MEMS Technology: "Training Wheels for Nanotechnology"?: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.1.html#anchor580093 Searching For Nanocritics: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.5.html#anchor1246034 Links to Websites emphasizing molecular manufacturing, scanning probe miscroscopy, applications of nanotechnology to space, and molecular modeling: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update28/Update28.2.html#anchor133730 http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update29/Update29.5.html#anchor528903 ---------- -Some places on the Foresight Web site to watch for a few of the most significant developments between issues of Update and this newsletter: "What's New at this Site" lists the items that have been added each month: http://www.foresight.org/WhatsNew/index.html "Selected Headlines" are developments of exceptional significance for the development of nanotechnology: http://www.foresight.org/News/index.html#anchor1389651 News of Foresight Institute and its leadership: http://www.foresight.org/News/index.html#anchor1425374 Announcements of meetings and other events: http://www.foresight.org/News/index.html#anchor1454914 -To help visitors to the Foresight Web site access the basic literature on preparing for molecular nanotechnology and other advanced technologies: Last year, Russell Whitaker set up the online version of Engines of Creation at: http://www.asiapac.com/EnginesOfCreation/ Recently this work has been mirrored on the Foresight Web site at: http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html Also, Eric Drexler's essay on Hypertext Publishing and the Evolution of Knowledge is available at: http://www.foresight.org/WebEnhance/HPEK1.html -All but four of the back issues of Update are available at the Foresight Web site. The links can be found at: http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Publications.html We expect to have the remaining back issues available in a few months. -It is now possible to use your credit card to register on line: for the Fifth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology: https://www.MediaCity.com/secure/Foresight/RegEForm.html to become a Senior Associate: https://www.MediaCity.com/secure/Foresight/AppForm.html To play a key role in Foresight's efforts, see: http://www.foresight.org/SrAssoc/index.html for more information about Foresight's Senior Associates program. ----- End Included Message ----- From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 06:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3664" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "15:51:07" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "98" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA20056 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 06:52:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA20012 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 06:51:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id PAA09646; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:51:07 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707231351.PAA09646@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3663 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:51:07 +0200 (MET DST) To Kelly & Timothy: > From: KellySt@aol.com > > TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: > > >Regarding problem 12b: > > > >I'd wanted to mention the Euler instability (didn't know it had a name > >though), but assumed that if we could not control the sail, > >then using any sail-design would be a mistake. > >Writing this I realize that we may be able to control a sail-design if it > >has less inherent instability. > > > >My best guess is to use a parashute-model and shield > >the relative small payload. > > One alternative is to have fleets of little tugs sheparding the sail into > shape. Not very eligant, but an option worth consideration. > My worry about the instability of the "payload-up-front" design did not concern the sail. The sail will still work like the parachute, but it will not be pulling the payload directly, only push the end of a long truss with payload at its other end: Warning: ASCII art follows (use a fixed font to view) ----------------------------------------------------- ... sail ... | \ shrouds to the sail | \ payload | \ | \ <--- #### | pulling truss \ <--- beam #####==================<==================# <--- from #### | / <--- Earth | / <--- | / | / | / shrouds to the sail ... sail ... As a result, the pulling truss (with the heavy payload at the other end) will be unstable, with the tendency of the payload end to veer to the sides. The tugs shepherding the sail will be needed in any case, especially if the whole construction should be able to make sideways manoeuvres to follow the jiggling (or spiraling) beam. Concerning the shielding/drag problem: > From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) > > Hoping that Zenon did quote your entire letter, here my comment > Yes, I quoted the whole letter. [...] > > Zenon worried: > That seems an important observation. > My guess is that even more restrictive on the sail speed > would be the physical damage inflicted on the sail by the > interstellar medium (even the hydrogen atoms, but also other debris, > like dust). You cannot shield the entire sail... > > My suggestion was to use part of the beam to blow clear the path. > We may re-route a part of the beam to a more divergent beam > which will push the few atoms in our way to the side. > Or make the sail partially transparent. But these solutions further increase the beam power losses, comparable to (or possibly larger than) those caused by the drag. So it will not be the solution for the drag problem, but possibly for the shielding problem. I wonder how much energy in the beam will be needed to sweep clear the space before the ship from dust and how big are the particles that can be sweeped fast enough this way? Note however, that the gas & fine dust pushed by that "shielding beam" before the ship will accumulate into a "shock wave" than can possibly destroy/pulverize the larger debris way ahead of the ship. (*) Certainly, if it will work efficiently enough for large velocities of the ship, it will solve the problem of shielding nicely. (*) Hope it will dissipate before reaching the target system and wiping out the life or whatever from some planet(s) there... -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 08:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2121" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "17:20:42" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "47" "Re: starship-design: New Idea from non member" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA11480 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:28:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA11428 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:28:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id RAA09873; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 17:20:42 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707231520.RAA09873@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2120 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: New Idea from non member Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 17:20:42 +0200 (MET DST) > From: KellySt@aol.com > > In a message dated 7/22/97 3:46:35 PM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: > > >---------start new idea ------------------- > > > >Each transmitter could be a stationary fusion rocket with the beam > >pointed in one direction, and the fusion exhaust (at very low speed) > >pointed in the other. Since the whole thing is stationary, it could be > >refueled periodicly by robot tenders. The fusion motor could tap most > >of the kinetic/thermal energy of the fusion products to provide > >electricity to power the transmitter, with a little left over kinetic > >energy and a fair amount of mass to provide a counter balancing force. > > > >---------end new idea -------comments?----- > > Cool, that would also get around the problem of the transmiters > moving during the transmition period. > Eh, what do you mean by "stationary"? Nothing in space is stationary, it will always orbit around (or falling at) some other body. You may make it "stationary" with respect to the Sun making it hover at a distance due to constant thrust toward the Sun (I wonder how large thrust it should be in the gravitational field of the Sun near the Earth orbit - can physicists here calculate this?). However, the thrust should also compensate for the recoil from the emitted beam (quite large, I am afraid). Moreover, refueling them would be a problem - a robot tender going from Earth (or the asteroid belt) with the fuel will have to decelerate away all its orbital speed (30 km/s in the vicinity of Earth's orbit), stay "stationary" on its rocket exhaust when at the transmitter (or be firmly hooked to it, using transmitter increased thrust for hovering) and then accelerate again to this speed when going back. And such a manoeuver will certainly shatter a little the transmitter itself, making the beam jiggling. There will be similar problem with positioning the starship itself on the straight-line (along the beam) course to the target system - first you must somehow annihilate its orbiting speed around the Sun (which will be essentially perpendicular to the direction of the beam...). -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 08:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["987" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "17:28:28" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "27" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA22590 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:59:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA21496 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:58:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id RAA09886; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 17:28:28 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707231528.RAA09886@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 986 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 17:28:28 +0200 (MET DST) Ahh, in my drawing of the configuration I should have of course written "pushing truss", instead of "pulling truss" (I have had always problems with rembering what is "pull" and what is "push" ;-))) Warning: ASCII art follows (use a fixed font to view) ----------------------------------------------------- ... sail ... | \ shrouds to the sail | \ payload | \ | \ <--- #### | pushing truss \ <--- beam #####==================<==================# <--- from #### | / <--- Earth | / <--- | / | / | / shrouds to the sail ... sail ... -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 10:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["203" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "11:42:00" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "14" "starship-design: NASA Paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA02831 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:42:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA02818 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:42:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-92.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-92.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.92]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA12301 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:42:15 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D65078.67A0@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 202 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: NASA Paper Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:42:00 -0700 Greetings: That paper I mentioned earlier about starship drives can be obtained from: Marc G. Millis marc_millis@nasa.lerc.gov The title is: The Challenge to Create the Space Drive Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 11:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["39341" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "12:43:54" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "544" "starship-design: Preliminary Design for a Solar Laser Power Station" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA24294 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:36:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA24225 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:36:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p44.gnt.com (x2p45.gnt.com [204.49.68.250]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA24453 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:35:56 -0500 Received: by x2p44.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC976D.558C0380@x2p44.gnt.com>; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:35:50 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC976D.558C0380@x2p44.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BC976D.55F0B8C0" Content-Length: 39340 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Preliminary Design for a Solar Laser Power Station Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:43:54 -0500 ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC976D.55F0B8C0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Preliminary design for a Solar Laser Power Station OVERVIEW This is a design for a solar powered laser that uses a sail as both the concentrator and the station keeping propulsion. It consists of an annular solar sail with an aperture in the middle to pass a beam through, a solar powered laser (this is technically not a laser since it will radiate coherent radiation in multiple frequencies) and station keeping, focusing and aiming controls. It is designed to be low cost, and low maintenance as well as easily mass producible using only moderately intelligent automation. OPERATIONAL DESCRIPTION Sail Operation This is NOT an orbital design. It is designed to kill its orbital velocity by tacking a solar sail until it is oriented to accelerate directly away from the sun with a thrust that is equal to the gravitational pull plus a reserve component of thrust to offset the pressure of the laser. Sunlight is collected by the sail in the normal manner but the geometry of the sail is such as to concentrate the reflected sunlight at a solar laser suspended where the ship would normally be. Laser Operation The laser is basically an optical concentrator whose geometry produces an extremely concentrated, nearly coherent beam of SUNLIGHT. Because the beam is not completely coherent and consists of multiple spectra, it cannot be truly considered a laser, but in most respects (and for our purposes) it behaves like one. ADVANTAGES 1) No onboard fuel or resupply of fuel is necessary. All power can be derived from sunlight for both its primary mission (the laser), station keeping and electrical power generation for on board electronics. 2) Simple to build 3) Greatest conversion efficiency 4) Mass producible from material found off of Earth 5) Technically there is no limit on how big the generator can be. DISADVANTAGES 1) Station keeping is likely to be tricky when coupled with aiming mechanisms. May cause additional beam jitter requiring extra generating stations to provide surplus capacity. 2) As beam angle diverges from solar thrust angle additional steering is required to compensate for the sideways vector. There is probably an upper limit to the beam angle which can be generated and therefore an upper limit to how many can be aimed at one target. 3) Continuos proximity of the sail to a sun is likely to cause additional wear in the sail material due to the thicker solar wind. Because of the lack of orbit, rendezvous for repairs is unlikely. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "I share no man's opinions; I have my own." 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Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA22238 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:24:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wr9q0-000FHVC; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:24:52 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2104 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:19:15 +0100 Lee, >> The beaming concept looks nice, but its most essential problem is >> deceleration. Using the "sail" as an energy collector to power some engine >> (Kelly has a "simple" solution for that too) is the only option besides a >> retro-reflection-mirror. > >[L. Parker] I was assuming that the first trip would use some other method >of braking, perhaps a combination of magnetic and solar sail braking. >Subsequent trips could use lasers built by the first trip. Solar braking is out of the question, the beam we use is much more concentrated than solar light at a save distance. Magnetic braking will need thousants (probably much much more) of miles of (heavy?) conductive wires, and you'll probably not be in a strong enough magnetic field for a long enough time. I'd think this has been said several times before. >[L. Parker] Transmitted power density is measured in one frame of >reference but impact density on the leading edge of the sail is in >a different frame of reference where "mass per second" is measured >with a relativistic shift. You will have a laser behind you and the >equivalent of an x-ray laser in front of you (I know, its not really >a laser because it isn't coherent) for that matter there will be an >opposite relativistic shift on the beam which will further lower the >terminal velocity. True there is that reverse dopplershift, but I don't think the impacting molecules at the front will form anything like a dense wall, unless we get very close to the speed of light. For our vessels, the doppler shift is not likely to exceed a factor 10. >> My suggestion was to use part of the beam to blow clear the path. We may >> re-route a part of the beam to a more divergent beam which will push the few >> atoms in our way to the side. > >[L. Parker] Not a bad idea. They use a similar technique with high >energy lasers in the military, a short burst in front of the main >shot creates a sort of temporary vacuum which reduces beam scattering >in atmosphere. Bummer, I thought I was the first to think of this ;) Glad to know it works though. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 15:25 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["338" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "00:19:13" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "14" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA22569 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:25:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA22545 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:25:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wr9pz-000F9wC; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:24:51 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 337 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:19:13 +0100 Kelly wrote: >>My best guess is to use a parashute-model and shield the relative small >>payload. > >One alternative is to have fleets of little tugs sheparding the sail into >shape. Not very eligant, but an option worth consideration. You've to elaborate about this, so far I don't see where this differs from a parachute. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 16:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["164" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "18:17:13" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "7" "RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA24272 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:45:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA24224 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:45:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p7.gnt.com [204.49.68.212]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA09721 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:45:52 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9798.A3A11F80@x2p7.gnt.com>; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:45:49 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9798.A3A11F80@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id QAA24233 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 163 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:17:13 -0500 Kelly, Why don't you try spinning the sail into shape? Ever seen a fisherman cast a throw net? He gives a little flick with his wrist to make it spin open. Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 17:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3205" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "19:31:02" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "63" "RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA10833 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 17:33:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA10821 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 17:33:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p35.gnt.com [204.49.68.240]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA12845 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 19:33:06 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC979F.250E0000@x2p7.gnt.com>; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 19:32:23 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC979F.250E0000@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id RAA10822 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3204 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 19:31:02 -0500 Timothy. Well, I will grant that the first trip will be the hardest ;-) but, there are a multitude of deceleration schemes available. It may take longer to slow down than it did to accelerate, but once we can get there we can use beamed power at both ends of the journey. A straight solar sail deceleration at the end is not out of the question, it just means that turn over will be earlier. Or perhaps we can use one of Forward's ideas for a two stage mirror/sail where the larger sail continues to accelerate while a smaller central sail is decelerated by the reflection from the main sail. I'm not sure where you got your calculations on the magnetic braking, but everything presented to NASA seems to work. It is a viable concept, although unproven. I think I would consider the fact that it is unproven before your objections regarding the strength of the field or the mass of the wires. (Of course, sail technology in general is unproven .) If worse comes to worse, let's try this: 1) POWERED gravity assist launch 2) Deploy solar sail while DEEP within sun's solar wind (where it is most effective) 3) Additional boost from beamed power arrays until turnover 4) Deployment of retromirror at turnover 5) Solar braking assist from target star 6) Use sail to "tack" into orbit around target star (This is a wide orbit that gradually spirals inward) 7) Construction of power arrays in target system 8) Repeat from 1) but now use beamed power to brake directly into orbit around target star. As far as terminal velocity goes, I don't know the relevant equations and I suspect their derivation will be messy, but I'm fairly sure that if we want to get much above .9 c it is going to be a factor. Once you start factoring in time dilation, the RELATIVE density is going to go up in DIRECT proportion to the time dilation. Something else to consider, the calculations so far on sail material have simply factored in heating from solar light and beamed power, I didn't see any calculations of heating on BOTH sides of the sail. Forget terminal velocity, at what speed does the sail melt? Tungsten has the highest melting point that I can think of. How much power can we beam at a sail 4 microns thick made out of vacuum deposited tungsten before we reach 3,410 degrees C? What is the impact density at various speed regimes given the interstellar density in our region (thin). How much heat will the sail absorb from impact with the interstellar medium at these velocities? Can we develop a coefficient of heat (similar to a coefficient of friction) that can be input into a relativistic rocket equation to yield an upper limit on velocity? This is applicable to ANY starship, not just sail powered ships unless we are going to start speculating about non-material shielding. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Long experience has taught me not to believe in the limitations indicated by purely theoretical considerations. These - as we well know - are based on insufficient knowledge of all the relevant factors." Guglielmo Marconi From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 18:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4505" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "20:13:08" "-0500" "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" "hous0042@tc.umn.edu" nil "105" "starship-design: Beamed power" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA23059 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:18:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id SAA23048 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:18:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pub-31-a-183.dialup.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Wed, 23 Jul 97 20:18:06 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D6AC24.7665@tc.umn.edu> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 4504 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Sender: owner-starship-design To: Starship design group Subject: starship-design: Beamed power Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 20:13:08 -0500 Zenon Kulpa wrote: > My worry about the instability of the "payload-up-front" design > did not concern the sail. The sail will still work like the parachute, > but it will not be pulling the payload directly, only push the end > of a long truss with payload at its other end: > > Warning: ASCII art follows (use a fixed font to view) > ----------------------------------------------------- > > ... sail ... > | \ shrouds to the sail > | \ > payload | \ > | \ <--- > #### | pulling truss \ <--- beam > #####==================<==================# <--- from > #### | / <--- Earth > | / <--- > | / > | / > | / shrouds to the sail > ... sail ... > > As a result, the pulling truss (with the heavy payload at the other end) > will be unstable, with the tendency of the payload end > to veer to the sides. > I like this idea for a "shielding sail" That is, a small sail used to protect the crew quarters from the beam. I still think we should use tension members (instead of compression) to support the payload (along with it's associated shielding sail) > The tugs shepherding the sail will be needed in any case, > especially if the whole construction should be able to make > sideways manoeuvres to follow the jiggling (or spiraling) beam. > I don't think sideways manuevers will be possible (or desirable) the beam should be a straight line connecting the two suns. If any sideways motion of the beam occurs, it will be either too fast (jitter) or will take us away from the system. The number one problem with a beamed system is what to do if the power cuts out. All I can think is that the crew will have to stay the course and hope that earth gets things straightened out before the ship impacts the target system's sun. > Concerning the shielding/drag problem: > > From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) > > > > Zenon worried: > > That seems an important observation. > > My guess is that even more restrictive on the sail speed > > would be the physical damage inflicted on the sail by the > > interstellar medium (even the hydrogen atoms, but also other debris, > > like dust). You cannot shield the entire sail... > > > > My suggestion was to use part of the beam to blow clear the path. > > We may re-route a part of the beam to a more divergent beam > > which will push the few atoms in our way to the side. > > > Or make the sail partially transparent. > perhaps a dual frequency beam would work. A main power beam in the microwave band (for example) and a lower power path clearing one in the visible or UV band. The main sail could then have holes in it that are smaller than the microwave frequency, which would allow the higher frequency band to pass through. The higher band wouldn't even need to be on all the time. it could be pulsed or gradually decreased in power as the trip progressed. > But these solutions further increase the beam power losses, > comparable to (or possibly larger than) those caused by the drag. > So it will not be the solution for the drag problem, > but possibly for the shielding problem. > > I wonder how much energy in the beam will be needed to sweep clear > the space before the ship from dust and how big are the particles > that can be sweeped fast enough this way? > Note however, that the gas & fine dust pushed by that > "shielding beam" before the ship will accumulate into > a "shock wave" than can possibly destroy/pulverize > the larger debris way ahead of the ship. (*) > Certainly, if it will work efficiently enough for large velocities > of the ship, it will solve the problem of shielding nicely. > > (*) Hope it will dissipate before reaching the target system > and wiping out the life or whatever from some planet(s) there... > Perhaps a lower powered beam could be sent ahead by several months/years -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 20:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["480" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "23:02:07" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "18" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA18706 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 20:02:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA18692 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 20:02:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id XlQ17163; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 23:01:49 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970723.230425.17582.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <01BC9798.A3A11F80@x2p7.gnt.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-11,14-16 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 479 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 23:02:07 -0400 On Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:17:13 -0500 "L. Parker" writes: >Kelly, > >Why don't you try spinning the sail into shape? Ever seen a fisherman >cast a throw net? He gives a little flick with his wrist to make it >spin open. > >Lee > > This would work, but with the sail diameters I've seen, the centripetal acceleration required to keep the sail relatively flat (thought it would still present a convex face to the transmitter) will tear the sail apart. Jim From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 20:21 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2236" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "22:16:41" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "51" "RE: starship-design: Beamed power" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA23086 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 20:21:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA23075 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 20:21:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p39.gnt.com [204.49.68.244]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA24283 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:21:39 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC97B6.C8678200@x2p7.gnt.com>; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:21:36 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC97B6.C8678200@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2235 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Beamed power Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:16:41 -0500 Kevin, >> The tugs shepherding the sail will be needed in any case, > especially if the whole construction should be able to make > sideways manoeuvres to follow the jiggling (or spiraling) beam. [L. Parker] Something I have been wondering about for awhile, why bother trying to follow the jitter of the beam? Wouldn't it be better to accept some degradation in over all acceleration by ensuring that the beam is wider than the margin of error (jitter) even at the expense of acceleration? The advantage is obvious, no steering, just stay on course. The worst that can happen is that it takes slightly longer to get there. I don't think sideways manuevers will be possible (or desirable) the beam should be a straight line connecting the two suns. If any sideways motion of the beam occurs, it will be either too fast (jitter) or will take us away from the system. The number one problem with a beamed system is what to do if the power cuts out. All I can think is that the crew will have to stay the course and hope that earth gets things straightened out before the ship impacts the target system's sun. [L. Parker] If the beams cuts out, they have worse problems than steering. > Concerning the shielding/drag problem: > Or make the sail partially transparent. > [L. Parker] Or perhaps periodically replace the old sail with a new one and time the changeover so that a new high power pulse is allowed to "pass by" the ship to keep the path ahead clear. > (*) Hope it will dissipate before reaching the target system > and wiping out the life or whatever from some planet(s) there... > [L. Parker] !!!What are you going to do? Focus the entire output of the sun for several minutes at Tau Ceti? At closer ranges, I might be worried, for instance, Mars might experience some severe polar cap melting if it was caught in the beam, but I really don't see us generating enough power to do any damage at that range. There is a big difference between cosmic dust and a planet. L. Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- A sufficiently incompetent ScF author is indistinguishable from magic. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 20:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["577" "Wed" "23" "July" "1997" "22:30:30" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "19" "RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA24448 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 20:30:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA24433 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 20:30:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p39.gnt.com [204.49.68.244]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA25194 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:30:48 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC97B8.10C42D40@x2p7.gnt.com>; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:30:47 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC97B8.10C42D40@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 576 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:30:30 -0500 Jim, >This would work, but with the sail diameters I've seen, the centripetal >acceleration required to keep the sail relatively flat (thought it would >still present a convex face to the transmitter) will tear the sail apart. It was just an idea, although on reflection, the torque on the central hub might be an even bigger problem. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Bohr moved in atomic circles while Schrodinger waved and Heisenberg hesitated. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 21:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3374" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "00:58:51" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "77" "Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA13828 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:59:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout06.mail.aol.com (emout06.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.97]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA13817 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:59:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout06.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA19931; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:58:51 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970724005851_291402061@emout06.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3373 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, owner-starship-design@darkwing.uoregon.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:58:51 -0400 (EDT) > In a message dated 7/23/97 2:07:30 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl > (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: > >Lee, > >Hoping that Zenon did quote your entire letter, here my comment > >> In rergards to shielding the cargo aeas of sail powered craft I think >> you are worrying too much. > >In my summary it is just on of many points. It is a problem that may arise, >but surely not the biggest. > >> I seem to remember that Forward performed all >> of these calculations. I will look them up to be sure. But, anything >> with sufficient power to require a lot of shielding on the cargo will >> MELT THE SAIL. > >True, but you got me thinking about something... > >I think most of us are still assuming that the sail is a mirror. This can be >true, but if so, it will not decelerate the ship unless we can make a >retro-mirror (or plasma-cloud mirror) work. (Kelly would you care writing a >short explanation about the plasma-cloud mirror for the new members?) Ok. Imagine a parabolic sail hung in frount of the ship like a parachute. Its shape is adjusted to keep the reflected microwaves focused backward into a smallar ring sail behind the ship (I.E. closer to Sol). The smaller sail focuses the beam forward into a beam passing through the middle of a ring shaped ship. Because of the two reflections your net thrust is zero. But then the focused microwave beam hits the plasma mirror the ship magnetically suspend in the volume inside the ring. The beam is reflected backwards where it hits a drag sail. The plasma is reflected (blasted) forward and is lost. Net thrust is from the drag sail, toward the microwave source. Note this assumes you can economically replace the plasma mirror mass. If you lose to much mass, you wouldn't be able to carry enough to sustain the mirror durring the deceleration phase. Oh, note that the mirror plasma will get hot! Probably enough to explode outward in all directions. This blast presure might be tapable to provide a bit of rocket thrust. My gut feel is that woldn't work thou. >The beaming concept looks nice, but its most essential problem is >deceleration. Using the "sail" as an energy collector to power some engine >(Kelly has a "simple" solution for that too) is the only option besides a >retro-reflection-mirror. > > Well Kevin had tinkered with the idea of using the microvave beam to power a reverse thrust rocket motor (M.A.R.S. - Microwave Augmented Rocket System) but I'm not sure where thats at. My idea was Fuel/Sail. You weave the sail out of a solid fussion fuel like Lithium-6. Lithium is a stiff metal, and should be adaptable as a sail material. The microwave beam accelerates the sail, which outweight the ship by a fantastic amount. After your boosted to cruse speed you pull in the sail into a solid plug in frount of the ship (for impact sheilding). When you reach the star system, you burn the fuel in fusion motors to decelerate you into the system. Since the sail can be any size you want. I scaled it to about 400 times the dry weight of the ship. That would let it decelerate from about 40%-43%(?) of light speed. Giving you a quick trip. For the ride back you mine more lithium-6. Burn it all accelerating back toward Sol. They deploy a compartivly tiny drag sail to decelerate you down into Sol (assuming someone will turn on the beam again). Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 23 22:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2568" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "00:59:27" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "65" "Re: starship-design: New Idea from non member" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA13904 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:59:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA13894 for ; Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:59:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA08225; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:59:27 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970724005926_-1124128428@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2567 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: New Idea from non member Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:59:27 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/23/97 1:31:36 PM, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> From: KellySt@aol.com >> >> In a message dated 7/22/97 3:46:35 PM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >> >> >---------start new idea ------------------- >> > >> >Each transmitter could be a stationary fusion rocket with the beam >> >pointed in one direction, and the fusion exhaust (at very low speed) >> >pointed in the other. Since the whole thing is stationary, it could be >> >refueled periodicly by robot tenders. The fusion motor could tap most >> >of the kinetic/thermal energy of the fusion products to provide >> >electricity to power the transmitter, with a little left over kinetic >> >energy and a fair amount of mass to provide a counter balancing force. >> > >> >---------end new idea -------comments?----- >> >> Cool, that would also get around the problem of the transmiters >> moving during the transmition period. >> >Eh, what do you mean by "stationary"? >Nothing in space is stationary, it will always orbit >around (or falling at) some other body. >You may make it "stationary" with respect to the Sun >making it hover at a distance due to constant thrust >toward the Sun -- Yes, fixed (give or take) relative to the Sun and the target star. >--(I wonder how large thrust it should be >in the gravitational field of the Sun near the Earth orbit - >can physicists here calculate this?). However, the thrust >should also compensate for the recoil from the emitted >beam (quite large, I am afraid). >Moreover, refueling them would be a problem - a robot tender >going from Earth (or the asteroid belt) with the fuel >will have to decelerate away all its orbital speed >(30 km/s in the vicinity of Earth's orbit), >stay "stationary" on its rocket exhaust when at the transmitter >(or be firmly hooked to it, using transmitter increased thrust >for hovering) and then accelerate again to this speed when going back. >And such a manoeuver will certainly shatter a little >the transmitter itself, making the beam jiggling. If we can consider launching a starship, the fueling tug would be a trivial problem. >There will be similar problem with positioning the starship itself >on the straight-line (along the beam) course to the target system - >first you must somehow annihilate its orbiting speed around the Sun >(which will be essentially perpendicular to the direction >of the beam...). > >-- Zenon Again. Compared to the 100,000 kps the ships tring to push itself up to. 30 kps is noise. The equvelant to a ships manuvers in port to dock. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 02:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1530" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "11:47:36" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "40" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA13482 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 02:52:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA13470 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 02:52:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-020.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wrKa7-000FzIC; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:53:11 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1529 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:47:36 +0100 Zenon, You wrote: >>My suggestion was to use part of the beam to blow clear the path. >>We may re-route a part of the beam to a more divergent beam >>which will push the few atoms in our way to the side. > >Or make the sail partially transparent. Doing that will push the particles mainly forward. We'd like them to be pushed aside, so the beam has to be a bit more divergent. >But these solutions further increase the beam power losses, >comparable to (or possibly larger than) those caused by the drag. >So it will not be the solution for the drag problem, >but possibly for the shielding problem. It indeed wasn't a solution for the drag, just for shielding. We might even use this to shield a self-powered ship. >I wonder how much energy in the beam will be needed to sweep clear >the space before the ship from dust and how big are the particles >that can be sweeped fast enough this way? Yes, I think it can. (assuming the beam is strong enough and divergent enough) Unless the particles are transparant for the radiation we use! >Note however, that the gas & fine dust pushed by that >"shielding beam" before the ship will accumulate into >a "shock wave" than can possibly destroy/pulverize >the larger debris way ahead of the ship. (*) True, but however using a divergent beam, the purpose is to get the particles out of our way as soon as possible. If possible we would not even like to accelerate it to the same speed as the ship. However if there is need, we might make the beam less divergent. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 08:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2234" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "17:35:40" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "57" "Re: starship-design: Beamed power" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA06665 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 08:36:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA06638 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 08:36:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id RAA10972; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:35:40 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707241535.RAA10972@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2233 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Beamed power Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:35:40 +0200 (MET DST) > From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" > >[...] > > > The tugs shepherding the sail will be needed in any case, > > especially if the whole construction should be able to make > > sideways manoeuvres to follow the jiggling (or spiraling) beam. > > I don't think sideways manuevers will be possible (or desirable) the > beam should be a straight line connecting the two suns. If any > sideways motion of the beam occurs, it will be either too fast (jitter) > or will take us away from the system. > Not all jitter must necessarily be fast - what about gravitational influences from a stray comet or asteroid sweeping through a few millions of kilometers from the transmitter? Also, we considered some time ago the design with the beam spiraling due to orbital motion (around the Sun) of the transmitter(s). Otherwise, the orbiting transmitter(s) must constantly change its (theirs) aim along the orbit, which may cause additional jitter, too fast to compensate adequately at the starship distance. > The number one problem with a beamed system is what to do if the power > cuts out. All I can think is that the crew will have to stay the course > and hope that earth gets things straightened out before the ship impacts > the target system's sun. > No way. Any message to Earth signaling the trouble will take years to go here, and the same time for the correction to appear at the starship place (not speaking about that the starship will be in quite a different place at the time...). If there CAN happen such thing as the beam veering to the side, I can see only two solutions: - a possibility of the ship to chase the beam (which means sideways motion); - send back the farewell messages and declare the mission to be "The First Valiant Suicide Interstellar Flight"... > > Concerning the shielding/drag problem: > [...] > > Perhaps a lower powered beam could be sent ahead by several months/years > It will probably not work - wwhen the ship moves forward, the beam-swept empty tunnell will be filled again with the matter moving from the sides. The "sweeping front" must be at all times not too far before the ship to prevent the filling. Remember - nothing is stationary in space... -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 08:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1154" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "17:50:42" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "29" "Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA11771 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 08:51:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA11756 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 08:51:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id RAA10989; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:50:42 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707241550.RAA10989@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1153 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:50:42 +0200 (MET DST) > From: KellySt@aol.com > > [...] > Note this assumes you can economically replace the plasma mirror mass. If > you lose to much mass, you wouldn't be able to carry enough to sustain the > mirror durring the deceleration phase. > > Oh, note that the mirror plasma will get hot! Probably enough to explode > outward in all directions. This blast presure might be tapable to provide a > bit of rocket thrust. My gut feel is that woldn't work thou. > Of course you can use such heated plasma as a rocked exhaust, why not? >[...] > Since the sail can be any size you want. I scaled it to about 400 times the > dry weight of the ship. That would let it decelerate from about 40%-43%(?) > of light speed. Giving you a quick trip. For the ride back you mine more > lithium-6. Burn it all accelerating back toward Sol. They deploy a > compartivly tiny drag sail to decelerate you down into Sol (assuming > someone will turn on the beam again). > And assuming you will be able to find the beam in the vastness of space... -- Zenon PS. Kelly, what happened to your charming spelling? I'm rely worrid about yor helth or somthing... ;-)) -- Z From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 08:56 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["677" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "17:55:47" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "21" "Re: starship-design: New Idea from non member" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA12962 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 08:56:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA12938 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 08:56:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id RAA11003; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:55:47 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707241555.RAA11003@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 676 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, KellySt@aol.com Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: New Idea from non member Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:55:47 +0200 (MET DST) > From: KellySt@aol.com > > [...] > >There will be similar problem with positioning the starship itself > >on the straight-line (along the beam) course to the target system - > >first you must somehow annihilate its orbiting speed around the Sun > >(which will be essentially perpendicular to the direction > >of the beam...). > > > >-- Zenon > > Again. Compared to the 100,000 kps the ships tring to push itself up to. > 30 kps is noise. The equvelant to a ships manuvers in port to dock. > And probably the only solution would be to use a tug, like in seaports... You cannot make so fine (30km/s) maneouvers with all that hundreds of kilometers of sail. -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 11:19 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2137" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "13:07:06" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "53" "RE: starship-design: Beamed power" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA10674 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:19:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA10658 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:19:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p13.gnt.com [204.49.68.218]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA10653 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:19:41 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9834.3B491D60@x2p7.gnt.com>; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:19:35 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9834.3B491D60@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2136 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Beamed power Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:07:06 -0500 Zenon, Just a few comments... > >Not all jitter must necessarily be fast - >what about gravitational influences from a stray comet or asteroid >sweeping through a few millions of kilometers from the transmitter? >Also, we considered some time ago the design with >the beam spiraling due to orbital motion (around the Sun) >of the transmitter(s). Otherwise, the orbiting transmitter(s) >must constantly change its (theirs) aim along the orbit, >which may cause additional jitter, too fast to compensate >adequately at the starship distance. > > >No way. Any message to Earth signaling the trouble >will take years to go here, and the same time for >the correction to appear at the starship place >(not speaking about that the starship will be in quite >a different place at the time...). >If there CAN happen such thing as the beam veering to the side, >I can see only two solutions: >- a possibility of the ship to chase the beam > (which means sideways motion); >- send back the farewell messages and declare > the mission to be "The First Valiant Suicide Interstellar Flight"... > We will have a constant course prediction and update to steer the beam with. Unless you are planning some pretty radical course change maneuvers in mid mission, the time lag won't matter any. All that is really necessary is that the beam is steered on the correct course continuously and that the sail can perform minor steering to remain ON THE SAME COURSE. Ignore beam jitter, it should average out to the baseline of the course. You may experience some fluctuation in acceleration, but it also should be relatively minor, unless of course something drastic happens to radically alter either the beam's path or the ship's course. In which case, you're right, forget steering, and make your peace... Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Chaos n. Predictable unpredictability. Heuristic adj. Pertaining to a lucky guess. Quantum mechanics n. The ghost in the clockwork. Sex n. Nature's multiplication algorithm. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 11:19 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1196" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "13:12:53" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "35" "RE: starship-design: New Idea from non member" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA10757 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:19:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA10691 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:19:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p13.gnt.com [204.49.68.218]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA10663 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:19:47 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9834.403A1180@x2p7.gnt.com>; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:19:44 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9834.403A1180@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1195 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: New Idea from non member Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:12:53 -0500 Zenon, >And probably the only solution would be to use a tug, >like in seaports... >You cannot make so fine (30km/s) maneuvers >with all that hundreds of kilometers of sail. Of course you can do it with the sail - sort of. Powered gravity assist around the sun to bring the speed up to just under escape velocity on an outbound course, then deploy the sail to add the last few m/sec and final course corrections. Actually, the argument you advanced is true of tugs because of the same arguments Kelly advanced against spinning the sail, it won't take that kind of point loading, you'll end up with the world's largest plate of sphagetti... Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way . . . knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation." -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Autobiography From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 11:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4661" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "11:35:21" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "93" "starship-design: Back from the wed" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA16394 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:35:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id LAA16368 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:35:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA10291; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:35:20 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA14740; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:35:21 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707241835.LAA14740@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4660 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Back from the wed Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:35:21 -0700 Gee - can't a guy go get married these days without coming home to hundreds of emails?? I have to confess I didn't read them all in depth, but I liked the recent idea of the Fuel/Sail, building the sail out of fusion materials. It got me thinking about using the sail for reaction mass for slowing down, and our months-old discussion about momentum/energy (P/E) ratios came to mind. (For all I know this has been discussed at length, so forgive me if I'm going over old ground) Photons have a very inefficient P/E, compared to massive particles, and I started thinking about catching beamed photons, and then transferring the energy into a massive particle, and shooting it forward. Assuming no energy is lost, the massive particle would have a higher P/E, and therefore you would lose more momentum to the particle (for a given energy) than you would gain from catching the photon and using it in the first place. The key equation is: E^2 = (K + mc^2)^2 = P^2 c^2 + M^2 c^4 This holds for both photons (M=0) and massive particles, where E is the total energy (including rest mass) and K is the kinetic energy (really all we care about) This simplifies to P^2 = K^2 / c^2 + 2 K M At this point I'm going to define E as the kinetic energy, and we can get replace those K's: P = [(E^2 / c^2) + 2 E M]^0.5 So if you "catch" some beamed energy (say 'E' joules) you gain a momentum of E/c. But if you can convert that energy to kinetic energy, and accelerate part of the sail forward, you can get a net backwards momentum out of the whole deal. If you want to have a net momentum loss of 2E/c (the same as your momentum gain for a reflecting sail), it turns out that every particle you accelerate forward must have a kinetic energy equal to exactly 1/4 of its rest mass, so M = 4E/c^2, and P = - 3E/c (backwards). Adding this to the E/c you gained from catching the beamed energy in the first place gives you a momentum loss of exactly - 2E/c; the same as you momentum gain during the accleration portion of the journey. Of course, things get more complicated once the ship starts losing mass. Fortunately, it works somewhat in our favor; less momentum is needed to slow the ship down when it's lighter. Turns out that accelerating a "mere" half of the total ship mass with the M/E=4/c^2 mass/energy ratio will slow the ship down from a third of lightspeed. Faster trips will require a larger Sail Mass / Ship Mass ratio. (I didn't do this relativistically, but I know some of you have those equations somewhere...) The biggest problem with losing mass (besides whittling away the sail without destroying it) will be that the sail will get too small too fast: we won't be able to "catch" all the energy once we start using up the sail as reaction mass. The amount of energy we need will drop in proportion to the mass of the ship as a whole, but the amount of energy we can catch (due to sail area) will drop faster, as the mass of the sail alone. However, given that we are talking about mass ratios of 400, these two masses are pretty much identical; with a sail that big the two values drop should drop pretty much at the same rate. So now the deceleration problem simply involves converting light energy to particle energy. Clearly the parabola-shaped sail will reflect the beamed power to an onboard engine. But not only do you have to have a decent conversion efficiency, but we're talking about huge amounts of energy we have to manipulate. Even if the "energy storage time" between receiving the power and shooting it off is very small, the net power the engine would have to handle would be terrible. Clearly a "passive-engine" scenario like the plasma mirror would be simplest, but we have to give a lot of photons to each proton to get the energy/mass ratio to come out right. Each proton will need 230GeV imparted to it, and it seems unlikely we can give a proton that much energy from a microwave beam without an "active" engine, where the energy distribution is manipulated by an accelerating structure. For mm-sized microwaves, this is 10^15 photons per proton! Perhaps starting off with a lower proton energy would be okay; if you transfer all the energy, the slower the protons the more you slow down, paradoxically enough. The problem with slow protons, though, is that you need a LOT of them to do the job of a few fast ones. If you shoot off too much mass too slow you'll run out of sail material before you can slow down enough... Run with this, someone... Ken Wharton "No brakes? Well, no point in steering now" (Bob MacKenzie, Strange Brew) From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 13:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1350" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "16:43:03" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "39" "Re: starship-design: Back from the wed" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA10903 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:42:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA10865 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:42:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id QkK05390; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:40:17 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970724.164303.3502.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707241835.LAA14740@watt> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-25,30-37 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1349 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Back from the wed Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:43:03 -0400 On Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:35:21 -0700 wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) writes: > >simplest, but we have to give a lot of photons to each proton to get >the >energy/mass ratio to come out right. Each proton will need 230GeV >imparted to it, and it seems unlikely we can give a proton that much >energy from a microwave beam without an "active" engine, where the >energy distribution is manipulated by an accelerating structure. For >mm-sized microwaves, this is 10^15 photons per proton! Perhaps >starting >off with a lower proton energy would be okay; if you transfer all the >energy, the slower the protons the more you slow down, paradoxically >enough. The problem with slow protons, though, is that you need a LOT > >of them to do the job of a few fast ones. If you shoot off too much >mass too slow you'll run out of sail material before you can slow down > >enough... > >Run with this, someone... > >Ken Wharton Okay, I'll run with it. How about using a small supply of antimatter ( not sure yet how much ) and using this to heat the reaction mass to high enough energies to make this efficient. For that matter, why not use the tanker ideas to launch reaction mass to a ship, while it only carries the necessary antimatter. Jim Clem > > >"No brakes? Well, no point in steering now" >(Bob MacKenzie, Strange Brew) > From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 14:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["876" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "14:54:42" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" "<199707242154.OAA16250@watt>" "19" "starship-design: Antimatter" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA11991 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 14:54:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id OAA11979 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 14:54:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA28831; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 14:54:42 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA16250; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 14:54:42 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707242154.OAA16250@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 875 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Antimatter Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 14:54:42 -0700 Er... make that 230MeV per proton, not GeV. That's a conversion of 10^12 mm microwave photons into each proton, not 10^15. Still a bunch, tho... As for antimatter, I guess the more energy sources the better. Keep in mind, though, that the result of antimatter annihilation is two photons, and photons are the worst possible way to turn energy into momentum. I guess my point was, though, that we don't need a second energy source (other than the beamed energy) -- it's possible to convert the incoming energy into a braking system. So we don't need more energy; we need a way to transfer it into 230MeV protons (or GeV alphas, or MeV electrons, etc., so long as the kinetic energy is roughly a quarter of the rest mass). Doing this on a huge scale, though... that's the tricky part. And keeping the forward beam neutral. And a bunch of other stuff no doubt... Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 15:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["498" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "15:01:47" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "11" "starship-design: Antimatter" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA14798 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:01:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA14757; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:01:47 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707242201.PAA14757@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707242154.OAA16250@watt> References: <199707242154.OAA16250@watt> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 497 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Antimatter Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:01:47 -0700 (PDT) Ken Wharton writes: > As for antimatter, I guess the more energy sources the better. Keep in mind, > though, that the result of antimatter annihilation is two photons, and > photons are the worst possible way to turn energy into momentum. Why do you people keep saying this? Photons are the _best_ way to turn energy into momentum. What's the momentum of 1 kg of mass converted into photons vs. the momentum of 1 kg of mass converted to energy and used to accelerate another 1 kg of mass? From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 15:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2053" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "15:32:40" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "52" "starship-design: Momentum" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA26962 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:32:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id PAA26927 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:32:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA02356; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:32:40 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA16586; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:32:40 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707242232.PAA16586@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2052 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Momentum Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:32:40 -0700 >Why do you people keep saying this? Photons are the _best_ way to turn >energy into momentum. What's the momentum of 1 kg of mass converted >into photons vs. the momentum of 1 kg of mass converted to energy and >used to accelerate another 1 kg of mass? Steve, I'll restate the formula I just derived: P = [(E^2 / c^2) + 2 E M]^0.5 If you disagree with the way I derived this, let me know. Keep in mind that E is kinetic energy, not total energy (total energy includes rest mass). If you don't like the looks of it, check it out in the limits of M->0 and M>>E/c^2; you'll see you get the momentum/energy relationship of zero-mass and sub-relativistic objects respectively. If you take 1kg of mass and convert it to energy you get (1kg x c^2) = 10^17 Joules. The momentum of E = 10^17 Joules of photons is simply E/c, or P = 3 10^8 kg m/s. However, if you accelerate a 1kg object with the 10^17 Joules instead, you can use the above equation to find that P = [(10^17)^2 / c^2 + 2 10^17 1kg]^0.5 P = [3 10^17]^0.5 kg m/s P = 5.5 10^8 kg m/s (I've rounded here, but the answer should be exactly the square root of three greater than the photon case.) In this case the ratio between Mc^2 and E was 1; as this ratio gets bigger (either the mass is larger or the energy drops) the difference from the photon case gets even larger. I suggested a ratio of 4:1 as a way to get three times the momentum as the incident beamed energy. Another way to think about this would be to think about this would be to put a 100 watt bulb in a mirrored box on wheels, with a hole cut in one side. The box wouldn't go anywhere, despite the fact that 100Joules per second was streaming out in photons. The momentum per second would only be 100Joules/(3 10^8 m/s) = 3 10^-7 kg m/s. But if instead you put 100 Joules into a 2kg weight every second, they'll be flying out at 10m/s, one a second, with a very sizable momentum indeed (namely 20 kg m/s per second). The huge mass/energy ratio causes quite a difference in momentum. Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 24 17:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["991" "Thu" "24" "July" "1997" "19:08:30" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "26" "RE: starship-design: Back from the wed" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA18325 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:56:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA18310 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:56:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p5.gnt.com [204.49.68.210]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA01886 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 19:56:56 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC986B.BAEABD80@x2p7.gnt.com>; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 19:56:52 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC986B.BAEABD80@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 990 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Back from the wed Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 19:08:30 -0500 Ken, >Okay, I'll run with it. How about using a small supply of antimatter ( >not sure yet how much ) and using this to heat the reaction mass to high >enough energies to make this efficient. For that matter, why not use the >tanker ideas to launch reaction mass to a ship, while it only carries the >necessary antimatter. Now for Jim's end run, suppose that we do build a small antimatter rocket of some sort. Let us make the sail out of vacuum deposited Tungsten which is also refractory and is still quite strong. It is almost as massive as Uranium, which might give us a great deal more thrust when we start to feed it to the antimatter rocket to decelerate. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- I stared into the sky, As wondering men have always done Since beauty and the stars were one, Though none so hard as I. Ralph Hodgson, 1871 - 1962, Song of Honor From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 25 14:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["828" "Fri" "25" "July" "1997" "15:37:26" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "20" "starship-design: Propulsion ideas" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA19658 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 14:37:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA19648 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 14:37:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-110.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-110.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.110]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA17361 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 17:37:41 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33D92AA5.3811@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 827 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Propulsion ideas Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:37:26 -0700 Greetings: I saw the threads about solar sail ships, and found them interesting. One thought: wouldn't it be more efficient to use an onboard laser, and shoot it out the back for thrust? The problem: Need energy (and lots of it) to run that kind of laser. Is this really a problem? No. Use ZPE lasers. The ZPE could provide the energy, which in turn is converted into a laser beam, and shot out the back for propulsion. And if I remember correctly, there was general support for ZPE in mid-june. One other idea: If ZPE cannot be easily turned into useful energy, it can still be used for propulsion. How? ZPE sails! And this WAS looked into by nasa and deemed quite possible. Any ideas? Kyle Mcallister "The secrets of flight will not be mastered within our lifetime...not within a thousand years." --Wilbur Wright, 1901 From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 25 15:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1133" "Fri" "25" "July" "1997" "15:40:15" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "26" "starship-design: Momentum" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA12531 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:40:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA12494 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:40:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA23387 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:39:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA02315; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:40:15 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707252240.PAA02315@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707242232.PAA16586@watt> References: <199707242232.PAA16586@watt> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1132 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Momentum Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:40:15 -0700 Ken Wharton writes: > Steve, > > I'll restate the formula I just derived: > > P = [(E^2 / c^2) + 2 E M]^0.5 > > If you disagree with the way I derived this, let me know. Keep in mind > that E is kinetic energy, not total energy (total energy includes rest > mass). If you don't like the looks of it, check it out in the limits of > M->0 and M>>E/c^2; you'll see you get the momentum/energy relationship > of zero-mass and sub-relativistic objects respectively. On the surface, your equation is correct enough. I think the problem I'm having is that in a different context I derived rather convincingly that photons are the best possible reaction product, in the sense that you get the most momentum per unit of fuel if you can convert the fuel completely to photons, which is somewhat different than what you're saying. I'm going to have to go over my notes when I get home to figure out what we're differing on in more detail. Until then, I'll leave you with the question: When your spaceship picks up the energ E from some photons, where are you putting the momentum of the photons? It can't be ignored. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 25 16:09 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1949" "Fri" "25" "July" "1997" "16:09:22" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "45" "starship-design: Both right" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA22056 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:09:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id QAA22046 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:09:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA24525; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:09:22 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA23393; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:09:22 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707252309.QAA23393@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1948 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Both right Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:09:22 -0700 Steve writes: >On the surface, your equation is correct enough. I think the problem >I'm having is that in a different context I derived rather convincingly >that photons are the best possible reaction product, in the sense that >you get the most momentum per unit of fuel if you can convert the fuel >completely to photons, which is somewhat different than what you're >saying. I'm going to have to go over my notes when I get home to figure >out what we're differing on in more detail. Yes, that's right. In the example you gave, the photons only had access to 1kg (the energy), while the block had access to 2kg (1kg energy plus 1kg reaction mass) which made the comparison unfair. You're right; for a given amount of reaction mass AND energy you will get the most momentum with photons. But for a given amount of energy only (ignoring the reaction mass) the best bet is massive objects. But, given that the sail is somewhat useless once we start to decelerate, we have reaction mass to spare, so this doesn't do anything to harm my deceleration scheme. You state: >Until then, I'll leave you with the question: When your spaceship picks >up the energ E from some photons, where are you putting the momentum of >the photons? It can't be ignored. The momentum of the photons is not ignored; it speeds up the ship, with an absorbed momentum of E/c, where E is the "caught" energy. I showed earlier, though, how you could use this same amount of energy (plus part of the sail itself as reaction mass) to slow down the ship by a momentum equal to 3E/c. The NET momentum loss (with no energy output) is only 2E/c, because you absorbed the momentum of the photons in the first place. As for the suggestion about making a heavy-element sail so there would be more reaction mass to slow down the ship, don't forget we have to speed this thing up before we can slow it down! The lighter the better, I think... Ken From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 25 16:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1442" "Fri" "25" "July" "1997" "16:17:43" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "27" "starship-design: Both right" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA25443 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:18:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA25433 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:18:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA27425; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:16:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA02403; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:17:43 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707252317.QAA02403@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707252309.QAA23393@watt> References: <199707252309.QAA23393@watt> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1441 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Both right Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:17:43 -0700 Ken Wharton writes: > >Until then, I'll leave you with the question: When your spaceship picks > >up the energ E from some photons, where are you putting the momentum of > >the photons? It can't be ignored. > > The momentum of the photons is not ignored; it speeds up the ship, with > an absorbed momentum of E/c, where E is the "caught" energy. I showed > earlier, though, how you could use this same amount of energy (plus part > of the sail itself as reaction mass) to slow down the ship by a momentum > equal to 3E/c. The NET momentum loss (with no energy output) is only > 2E/c, because you absorbed the momentum of the photons in the first > place. > > As for the suggestion about making a heavy-element sail so there would > be more reaction mass to slow down the ship, don't forget we have to > speed this thing up before we can slow it down! The lighter the better, > I think... OK, I think I'm satisfied. I agree that as long as you shed mass you can decelerate even though the beam is still pushing you. I was having flashbacks to a previous discussion from a couple of years ago where Kevin (I think) thought he had come up with a way to redirect the beam using angled reflectors to decelerate without using reaction mass, which I couldn't swallow. The ensuing flurry of letters was educational for everyone involved. I'll have to see about making those old letters available in the archives. From owner-starship-design Fri Jul 25 18:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["876" "Fri" "25" "July" "1997" "21:04:27" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "16" "starship-design: Long range fuel tankers" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA27245 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 18:02:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id SAA27236 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 18:02:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id VXG03600; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 21:01:32 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970725.210427.14358.1.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 12-14 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 875 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Long range fuel tankers Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 21:04:27 -0400 I have a question. I've been studying the fuel/sail and rair papers (VERY INTERESTING) and a thought comes to me. Since decelerating at the target is important (obviously!) Why not launch a HUGE stream of fuel tankers along with the ship in such a fashion that when the time for retro comes, It starts catching these tankers, with a line of them behind the ship catching up with it. In fact, it seems that we could have the ship build up the required fuel mass acceleration and deceleration. Possibly the ship could carry its own laser deceleration system to help catch them. The timing would be critical, but its easier than worrying about huge sails, and massive microwave generators. The ship could then set up a series of automated factories, like the papers suggest, to make return fuel, acceleration lasers, etc. I'll see if I can work something up on this. Jim From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 10:09 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1686" "Sat" "26" "July" "1997" "19:03:26" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "47" "starship-design: Kevin's theory" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA06261 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 10:09:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA06212 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 10:09:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsAKz-000GnCC; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 19:09:01 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1685 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Kevin's theory Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 19:03:26 +0100 Warning severely off topic message: (costs one "out of jail for free" ticket) Kevin, >The basic idea is that gravity is produced by our space-time's >deceleration in a spatial fourth dimension. I'd say a fifth dimension (x+y+z+t=4) >In fact, they are just sliding down the curved 2-D >spacetime. perhaps Einstein was more right than he knew, gravity and >acceleration are indistinguishable because gravity *is* >(de)acceleration. Not quite, gravity is deceleration in the dimension that we cannot easely access. But because the mass curves the normal dimensions into that extra dimension, the deceleration is not perpendicular on the normal dimensions anymore. Since it is not perpendicular, part of that deceleration is transformed to the normal dimensions. >How likely is this, can a mathmatical model be derived which would >refute or support this model. Are there any predictions one could make >about such a universe that would be at odds with our own? Most things can be modeled into mathematics, including this one. My prediction is: While most of the time the surface is decelerating, there must have been a time (the big bang) that it accelerated very fast. In that time, we would only have had anti-gravity: all mass lies on the top of hills and doesn't roll up the hill. I'm not sure if your theory gives insight or not. It takes a while to sink in (took me hours during several days). It might have helped if you'd found some spectacular (read "not expected") things. Sofar I found that antigravity existed during the Big Bang. If you can find more prediction and figure out a way to test them, then your theory is worth notifying. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 13:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["448" "Sat" "26" "July" "1997" "14:15:32" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "16" "starship-design: Many Questions" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA15089 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 13:15:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA15080 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 13:15:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.106]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA25211 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 16:15:46 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33DA68F4.4F47@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 447 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Many Questions Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:15:32 -0700 WARNING! Off-topic (for now) Greetings: I come with questions: 1. What causes antigravity? Theoretically in the big bang? 2. Is neutronium that was spoken of the degenerate matter in neutron stars? 3. Why does light speed up in casimir cavities? 4. What part of FTL causes causality violations? 5. What is Tipler's infinite rotating cylinder? A man made black hole? 6. What would happen to space surrounded by negative energy? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 14:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2922" "Sat" "26" "July" "1997" "14:11:57" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "69" "starship-design: Many Questions" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA26530 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:12:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA26513 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:12:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts12-line14.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.146]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA00795; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:11:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA05441; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:11:57 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707262111.OAA05441@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33DA68F4.4F47@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33DA68F4.4F47@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2921 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Many Questions Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:11:57 -0700 kyle writes: > WARNING! Off-topic (for now) > > Greetings: > > I come with questions: > > 1. What causes antigravity? Theoretically in the big bang? I'm no expert in inflationary big bang cosmology. The inflationary models postulate that spacetime expanded at a very high rate during the very early moments of the universe. In essence the radius of the universe expanded faster than the speed of light for some brief amount of time. > 2. Is neutronium that was spoken of the degenerate matter in neutron > stars? Neutronium is basically just a huge clump of neutrons. Neutron stars are formed when a collapsing stellar core reaches a pressure high enough to cause protons and electrons to combine into neutrons. Besides being incredibly dense, neutronium would be really hard to work, particularly since even small chunks would probably tend to just turn into spherical blobs from their own gravity. I think that you also have to have some minimum pressure to keep it stable, or the neutrons will just beta-decay back into protons and electrons again. > 3. Why does light speed up in casimir cavities? Presumably as a result of a change in electromagnetic properties of the vacuum. c = 1/sqrt(m0 * e0), where m0 is the magnetic permittivity of the vacuum and e0 the electric permittivity. > 4. What part of FTL causes causality violations? This I can speak to more authoritatively. A slower-than-light path through spacetime always appears to move forward in time (at different rates) for all observers, and events connected by particles travelling at or below the speed of light always have the same time order but with different time intervals between events measured by different observers. Faster-than-light paths can appear to move forward in time for some observers and backward in time for others depending on their relative velocity to the events in question, and events connected by faster-than-light paths therefore don't have the same time order for all observers. > 5. What is Tipler's infinite rotating cylinder? A man made black hole? Frank Tipler showed that the general-relativistic solution for the spacetime curvature around an infinitely long, massive rotating cylinder contained paths that allowed travel in time as well as space. While this is theoretically interesting, there are some massive practical problems (to understate it) with building such a cylinder; even if you didn't have to make it infinitely long, one dense enough to work would be incredibly difficult to restrain against axial collapse into a normal black hole. Nick Herbert's _Faster than Light_ discusses a lot of the general-relativistic approaches to faster-than-light travel. Unfortunately the proposals so far are all seemingly impossible to construct in our universe. > 6. What would happen to space surrounded by negative energy? I'll leave this for someone else :-) > Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 15:39 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4746" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "00:34:12" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "113" "RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA13497 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 15:39:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA13487 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 15:39:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsFV5-000ErKC; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:39:47 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4745 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:34:12 +0100 Hello Lee, You wrote me: >I'm not sure where you got your calculations on the magnetic braking, >but everything presented to NASA seems to work. It is a viable concept, >although unproven. I think I would consider the fact that it is unproven >before your objections regarding the strength of the field or the mass of >the wires. (Of course, sail technology in general is unproven .) I don't know about NASA's reports, but I'm quite sure they weren't thinking about velocities more than 0.001c (1,000,000 km/h) The main problem is that we don't know anything about interstellar magnetic and electric fields. Can you show me some webpages or numbers about it. I might be able to extrapolate some of these numbers. BTW with 0.5c it is only 11 hours from Plute to Sol. Even if we could decelerate that fast, we would not want to. >If worse comes to worse, let's try this: > >1) POWERED gravity assist launch >2) Deploy solar sail while DEEP within sun's solar wind (where it is > most effective) Solarwind? A sail reflects solarlight, not solarparticles. The amount of Sunlight that will be reflected by the sail compared to the amount it receives from the beaming station is neglectable. Step 2 can be left out. >3) Additional boost from beamed power arrays until turnover >4) Deployment of retromirror at turnover The main disadvantage of the retromirror was that it had to be selfregulating and very precise. Selfregulating in the sense that there will be no crew that does repairs or alike. Precise means that it's surface should be real smooth, otherwise the reflected beam will soon deminish in all directions. >5) Solar braking assist from target star If you already slowed down to 0.001c, you can just as well use some engine to move around. When we are in the destination system we would like to quickly fly back and forth anyhow (not necessary with the mothership). Soaring for a year to reach a planet sounds unacceptable (and unrealistic). Really for the speeds where solarsails are usable, their use is ridiculous compared to the interstellar travel. >6) Use sail to "tack" into orbit around target star (This is a wide > orbit that gradually spirals inward) >7) Construction of power arrays in target system Only possible if you've nanobots and AI. We're talking about an equivalent of building 1E9(?) nuclear powerplants with a relative small crew. >8) Repeat from 1) but now use beamed power to brake directly into orbit > around target star. >As far as terminal velocity goes, I don't know the relevant equations and >I suspect their derivation will be messy, but I'm fairly sure that if we >want to get much above .9 c it is going to be a factor. Once you start >factoring in time dilation, the RELATIVE density is going to go up in >DIRECT proportion to the time dilation. Something else to consider, the >calculations so far on sail material have simply factored in heating from >solar light and beamed power, I didn't see any calculations of heating on >BOTH sides of the sail. Forget terminal velocity, at what speed does the >sail melt? I did do some calculations some time ago. (Rex corrected me) Look for the subject "close but no cigar" (around may 12 1996) P_absorped = s * (T_eq)^4 . Where T_eq is the equilibrium temperature in Kelvin which should be below the melting temperature. Bolzmann's constant s=5.67 E-8 W/(m^2 K^4) P_absorped is the absorped power per square meter So suppose we've - a sail of 1000 square km (1E12 m^2) - a total power input of 1E19 Watt - 1% absorption in the sail That means we have an absorption of (1E19/1E12)*0.01 = 1E5 Watt/m^2 1E5 = 5.67E-8 * (T_eq)^4 --> T_eq = 1152 Kelvin Well below the melting temp of a lot of metals. >Tungsten has the highest melting point that I can think of. How much power >can we beam at a sail 4 microns thick made out of vacuum deposited >tungsten before we reach 3,410 degrees C? What is the impact density at >various speed regimes given the interstellar density in our region (thin). >How much heat will the sail absorb from impact with the interstellar >medium at these velocities? Hard to say, likely such a thin foil will not absorb much. Dust will just evaporate a small hole in it. This may indeed be another disadvantage of a sail, you just can't shield it, unless you want to make it extremely heavy. >Can we develop a coefficient of heat (similar to a coefficient of friction) >that can be input into a relativistic rocket equation to yield an upper limit >on velocity? This is applicable to ANY starship, not just sail powered ships >unless we are going to start speculating about non-material shielding. This is beyond my knowledge. Impact studies seem a specialized subject. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 15:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1763" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "00:34:15" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "42" "Re: starship-design: Preliminary Design for a Solar Laser Power Station" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA13572 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 15:40:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA13557 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 15:40:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsFV8-000ErNC; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:39:50 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1762 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Preliminary Design for a Solar Laser Power Station Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:34:15 +0100 Hello Lee, About your "Preliminary design for a Solar Laser Power Station" >OPERATIONAL DESCRIPTION > Sail Operation >This is NOT an orbital design. It is designed to kill its orbital velocity >by tacking a solar sail until it is oriented to accelerate directly away >from the sun with a thrust that is equal to the gravitational pull plus a >reserve component of thrust to offset the pressure of the laser. Sunlight >is collected by the sail in the normal manner but the geometry of the sail >is such as to concentrate the reflected sunlight at a solar laser suspended >where the ship would normally be. You probably don't need gravity to make it float. If you collect the light at one side and shine out to the other side, your momentum sum will be zero. Likely you'll move towards the direction you are shining the laser to, since the conversion efficiency will be much less than 100%. >The laser is basically an optical concentrator whose geometry produces an >extremely concentrated, nearly coherent beam of SUNLIGHT. Because the beam >is not completely coherent and consists of multiple spectra, it cannot be >truly considered a laser, but in most respects (and for our purposes) it >behaves like one. Having multiple spectra may be something we can't use. The mirror will likely be optimized to absorb is little possible (to prevent melting). Having a single frequency to reflect makes that much easier. Making solar lasers of a single frequency is possible, but reduces its output power per collector area. >ADVANTAGES >3) Greatest conversion efficiency Solar panels combined with the right electrical lasers do quite well too. And if you're talking about single frequencies, their efficiency is probably 10 times higher. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 17:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1219" "Sat" "26" "July" "1997" "20:40:41" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "45" "starship-design: Fwd: Re: L I T" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA07110 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:41:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA07096 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:41:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id UAA03980 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:40:41 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970726204039_-1039331535@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1218 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Fwd: Re: L I T Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:40:41 -0400 (EDT) Guys, The attached sounds like recrutment from a flake group. Anyone hear of these guys? United Earth Federation? Kelly --------------------- Forwarded message: From: uef@rocketmail.com (United Earth Federation) To: KellySt@aol.com Date: 97-07-25 04:31:11 EDT Hi Kelly, well I work for an organisation called the UEA. Basically we are a multinational organisation with various agencies covering different fields. One of the Agencies is called Earth New Technologies and its purpose is to further our knowledge etc through research. The UEA has a unique function, it enables other organisations to "latch" on and form a "relationship" with it. This increases the share of knowledge and will hopefully improve the efficency of the whole system. After seeing your site, we would very much like to form an alliance and integrate you into our structure. Would you be intrested? If so, please could you give us the following information: Number of members Function Where you are based Area of effect we can then discuss this in more detail. Thanks Shannon _____________________________________________________________________ Sent by RocketMail. Get your free e-mail at http://www.rocketmail.com From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 17:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1670" "Sat" "26" "July" "1997" "20:40:45" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "61" "Re: starship-design: Both right" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA07128 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:41:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAB07099 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:41:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id UAA21768; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:40:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970726204043_1381721009@emout19.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1669 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: Steve VanDevender , starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Both right Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:40:45 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/25/97 5:18:10 PM, you wrote: >Ken Wharton writes: > > > >Until then, I'll leave you with the question: When your spaceship picks > > > >up the energ E from some photons, where are you putting the momentum of > > > >the photons? It can't be ignored. > > > > > > The momentum of the photons is not ignored; it speeds up the ship, with > > > an absorbed momentum of E/c, where E is the "caught" energy. I showed > > > earlier, though, how you could use this same amount of energy (plus part > > > of the sail itself as reaction mass) to slow down the ship by a momentum > > > equal to 3E/c. The NET momentum loss (with no energy output) is only > > > 2E/c, because you absorbed the momentum of the photons in the first > > > place. > > > > > > As for the suggestion about making a heavy-element sail so there would > > > be more reaction mass to slow down the ship, don't forget we have to > > > speed this thing up before we can slow it down! The lighter the better, > > > I think... > > > >OK, I think I'm satisfied. I agree that as long as you shed mass you > >can decelerate even though the beam is still pushing you. I was having > >flashbacks to a previous discussion from a couple of years ago where > >Kevin (I think) thought he had come up with a way to redirect the beam > >using angled reflectors to decelerate without using reaction mass, which > >I couldn't swallow. The ensuing flurry of letters was educational for > >everyone involved. I'll have to see about making those old letters > >available in the archives. We really must organise this stuff into catagories and such. No I'm not volenteering. ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 17:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1589" "Sat" "26" "July" "1997" "20:41:07" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "51" "Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA07238 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:41:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA07226 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:41:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id UAA18996; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:41:07 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970726204106_139248433@emout12.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1588 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:41:07 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/25/97 12:54:35 PM, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> From: KellySt@aol.com >> >> [...] >> Note this assumes you can economically replace the plasma mirror mass. If >> you lose to much mass, you wouldn't be able to carry enough to sustain the >> mirror durring the deceleration phase. >> >> Oh, note that the mirror plasma will get hot! Probably enough to explode >> outward in all directions. This blast presure might be tapable to provide a >> bit of rocket thrust. My gut feel is that woldn't work thou. >> >Of course you can use such heated plasma as a rocked exhaust, >why not? It being blasted straight forward by the beam. I'm not sure how the ship could tap its reaction for thrust. >>[...] >> Since the sail can be any size you want. I scaled it to about 400 times the >> dry weight of the ship. That would let it decelerate from about 40%-43%(?) >> of light speed. Giving you a quick trip. For the ride back you mine more >> lithium-6. Burn it all accelerating back toward Sol. They deploy a >> compartivly tiny drag sail to decelerate you down into Sol (assuming >> someone will turn on the beam again). >> >And assuming you will be able to find the beam in the vastness of space... Beam is locked in a straight line for the flight duration. If you drift off, you'll know where you left it. >-- Zenon > >PS. Kelly, what happened to your charming spelling? > I'm rely worrid about yor helth or somthing... ;-)) -- Z Should be worse with me typing these at night in bad light. (desk lamp burned out.) ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Sat Jul 26 17:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["917" "Sat" "26" "July" "1997" "20:41:13" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "29" "Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA07255 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:41:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id RAA07235 for ; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:41:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id UAA27347; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:41:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970726204112_-1640302799@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 916 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:41:13 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/24/97 9:05:55 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly wrote: > >>>My best guess is to use a parashute-model and shield the relative small >>>payload. >> >>One alternative is to have fleets of little tugs sheparding the sail into >>shape. Not very eligant, but an option worth consideration. > >You've to elaborate about this, so far I don't see where this differs from a >parachute. > >Timothy With the chute, the sail is held in place by tension with and between the cables. If you add tugs. The little ships can move out to push or pull on spots of the sail that start to flap or wrinkle. Also could twist the sail for steering. For my fuel/sail idea this is especially interesting, since the ship would weigh less then 0.25% of the total weight. Being that light, it couldn't exercise enough damping to stablize a sail thousands of miles across. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 03:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1737" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "12:36:20" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "40" "starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id DAA07328 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 03:41:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id DAA07239 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 03:41:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-010.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsQlz-000F9JC; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:41:59 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1736 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Tugs Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:36:20 +0100 Hello Kelly, >>>One alternative is to have fleets of little tugs sheparding the sail into >>>shape. Not very eligant, but an option worth consideration. >> >>You've to elaborate about this, so far I don't see where this differs from a >>parachute. > >With the chute, the sail is held in place by tension with and between the >cables. If you add tugs. The little ships can move out to push or pull on >spots of the sail that start to flap or wrinkle. Also could twist the sail >for steering. > >For my fuel/sail idea this is especially interesting, since the ship would >weigh less then 0.25% of the total weight. Being that light, it couldn't >exercise enough damping to stablize a sail thousands of miles across. I wonder if these tugs are heavy enough to damp the sail. I also wonder where they get their power from (and how their outlet doesn't damage the sail). You also write "start to flap or wrinkle", sounds like you assume they are flapping very slowly. Anyhow, why would they start to flap? Flapping is caused by tubulence, I wonder where we would get that from. That leaves wrinkling, which can only be caused by uneven beam pressures. Uneven beam densities indeed may be really troublesome. They will not only wrinkle the sail, but also start to turn it (since the pressure on one side of the center of mass is bigger than on the other side). Oh wait, wrinkling is likely not an issue, since we will make the sail so that there is a slighly outward pressure that keeps the sail streched. Only very big (catastrophic) uneven beampressures will then wrinkle the sail. I wonder what the concequences of such high uneven beampressures will do. If only we could make parts of the sail transparent at will... Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 05:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["761" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "07:32:11" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "18" "RE: starship-design: Many Questions" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id FAA09306 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 05:34:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA09218 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 05:34:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p24.gnt.com [204.49.68.229]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA22163 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:34:18 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9A5F.7CD78140@x2p7.gnt.com>; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:34:16 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9A5F.7CD78140@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id FAA09246 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 760 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Many Questions Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:32:11 -0500 Kyle, 3. Why does light speed up in casimir cavities? Light speeds up because in normal light transmission there is always some absorption and retransmission by atoms present in the path of the photons. Even though it is nearly instantaneous, it isn't instant. Since a Casimir cavity is too small to contain many (or any) atoms, there is less absolution going on. It isn't really a matter of the speed of light going up in the cavity, it just comes closer to approaching it. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Who can guess what strange roads there may yet be on which we may travel to the stars? Arthur C. Clarke, The Promise of Space, 1968 From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 07:39 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["213" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "07:42:10" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "9" "RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA03505 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:39:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA03425 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:39:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p8.gnt.com [204.49.68.213]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA26349 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 09:38:59 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9A70.E7B5D780@x2p7.gnt.com>; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 09:38:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9A70.E7B5D780@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 212 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:42:10 -0500 Timothy, > I wonder what the concequences of such high uneven beampressures will do. > If only we could make parts of the sail transparent at will... Do you want the formula for transparent aluminum? Lee From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 07:49 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2634" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "16:48:08" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "81" "Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA22394 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:49:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA22025 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:49:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id QAA13490; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 16:48:08 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707271448.QAA13490@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2633 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 16:48:08 +0200 (MET DST) > From: KellySt@aol.com > > In a message dated 7/25/97 12:54:35 PM, (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: > > >> From: KellySt@aol.com > >> > >> [...] > >> Note this assumes you can economically replace the plasma mirror mass. > >> If you lose to much mass, you wouldn't be able to carry enough > >> to sustain the mirror durring the deceleration phase. > >> > >> Oh, note that the mirror plasma will get hot! Probably enough > >> to explode outward in all directions. This blast presure might > >> be tapable to provide a bit of rocket thrust. > >> My gut feel is that woldn't work thou. > > > >Of course you can use such heated plasma as a rocked exhaust, > >why not? > > It being blasted straight forward by the beam. I'm not sure how the ship > could tap its reaction for thrust. > Make the arrangement as follows: Warning: ASCII art follows (use a fixed font to view) ----------------------------------------------------- __________ | | \__ | <-the ring-shaped ship (cross-section) \__ | <=== \____| * <----- * * * <-------- plasma-producing beam * ____ <----- <=== __/ | __/ | / | |__________| ** exploding plasma <== plasma exhaust It will just work like a stream-jet engine. > >>[...] > >> Since the sail can be any size you want. I scaled it to about 400 times > >> the dry weight of the ship. That would let it decelerate from > >> about 40%-43%(?) of light speed. > >> Giving you a quick trip. For the ride back you mine more lithium-6. > >> Burn it all accelerating back toward Sol. They deploy a > >> compartivly tiny drag sail to decelerate you down into Sol > >> (assuming someone will turn on the beam again). > >> > >And assuming you will be able to find the beam in the vastness of space... > > Beam is locked in a straight line for the flight duration. > If you drift off, you'll know where you left it. > Will there be a nice striped poles along it to mark its course? More importantly, it will not be straight - as we have calculated some time ago, it will veer to the sides by hundreds (or thousands) of kilometers every time some of the transmitter maintenance crew sneezes or a stray comet wanders nearby.. > >-- Zenon > > > >PS. Kelly, what happened to your charming spelling? > > I'm rely worrid about yor helth or somthing... ;-)) -- Z > > Should be worse with me typing these at night in bad light. > (desk lamp burned out.) ;) > Oh, just this is my problem - it should be (much) worse, but isn't. Why? (wondered Zenon). -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 10:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3799" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "13:03:57" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "109" "Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA20159 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 10:28:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA20150 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 10:27:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id NAA06658; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:03:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970727130352_-1942578938@emout13.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3798 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:03:57 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/27/97 8:50:36 AM, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> From: KellySt@aol.com >> >> In a message dated 7/25/97 12:54:35 PM, (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> >> >> From: KellySt@aol.com >> >> >> >> [...] >> >> Note this assumes you can economically replace the plasma mirror mass. >> >> If you lose to much mass, you wouldn't be able to carry enough >> >> to sustain the mirror durring the deceleration phase. >> >> >> >> Oh, note that the mirror plasma will get hot! Probably enough >> >> to explode outward in all directions. This blast presure might >> >> be tapable to provide a bit of rocket thrust. >> >> My gut feel is that woldn't work thou. >> > >> >Of course you can use such heated plasma as a rocked exhaust, >> >why not? >> >> It being blasted straight forward by the beam. I'm not sure how the ship >> could tap its reaction for thrust. >> >Make the arrangement as follows: > >Warning: ASCII art follows (use a fixed font to view) >----------------------------------------------------- > __________ > | | > \__ | <-the ring-shaped ship (cross-section) > \__ | > <=== \____| > * <----- > * * * <-------- plasma-producing beam > * ____ <----- > <=== __/ | > __/ | > / | > |__________| > > > ** exploding plasma > <== plasma exhaust > >It will just work like a stream-jet engine. But the kinetic energy reaction is mainly between the beam and the plasma. The ships out of the loop. It would need to tap into it in some secoundary manor. But I do think the induced heat would cause the plasma to expand out sideways. So you should be able to do the rocket nozzel trick. Assuming the beam doesn't blast it out forward of the ship like a leaf in a fire hose. I.E. the expansion takes place about 100,000 miles ahead of you. ;) >> >>[...] >> >> Since the sail can be any size you want. I scaled it to about 400 times >> >> the dry weight of the ship. That would let it decelerate from >> >> about 40%-43%(?) of light speed. >> >> Giving you a quick trip. For the ride back you mine more lithium-6. >> >> Burn it all accelerating back toward Sol. They deploy a >> >> compartivly tiny drag sail to decelerate you down into Sol >> >> (assuming someone will turn on the beam again). >> >> >> >And assuming you will be able to find the beam in the vastness of space... >> >> Beam is locked in a straight line for the flight duration. >> If you drift off, you'll know where you left it. >> >Will there be a nice striped poles along it to mark its course? >More importantly, it will not be straight - as we have calculated >some time ago, it will veer to the sides by hundreds (or thousands) >of kilometers every time some of the transmitter maintenance crew >sneezes or a stray comet wanders nearby.. Well if you have a fleet of transmitter stations scattered over hundreds of thousand, to millions of miles the crew screw-up should be handelable. And you only are firing the beam for a few years, so the comets can be avoided by scheduling the flight. As for the pole. Make the center of the beam have a noticable carriour signal. Track the ship on that. >> >-- Zenon >> > >> >PS. Kelly, what happened to your charming spelling? >> > I'm rely worrid about yor helth or somthing... ;-)) -- Z >> >> Should be worse with me typing these at night in bad light. >> (desk lamp burned out.) ;) >> >Oh, just this is my problem - >it should be (much) worse, but isn't. >Why? (wondered Zenon). Dumb luck? Perhaps I'm statistically more likely to accidentally hit the right key, then on purpose? ;) >-- Zenon Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 10:39 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2181" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "19:38:38" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "63" "Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA11784 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 10:39:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA11629 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 10:39:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id TAA13610; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 19:38:38 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707271738.TAA13610@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2180 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 19:38:38 +0200 (MET DST) > From KellySt@aol.com Sun Jul 27 19:05:52 1997 > > In a message dated 7/27/97 8:50:36 AM, (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: > > >> From: KellySt@aol.com > >> > >> In a message dated 7/25/97 12:54:35 PM, (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: > >> > >> [...] > >> >And assuming you will be able to find the beam in the vastness > >> >of space... > >> > >> Beam is locked in a straight line for the flight duration. > >> If you drift off, you'll know where you left it. > >> > >Will there be a nice striped poles along it to mark its course? > >More importantly, it will not be straight - as we have calculated > >some time ago, it will veer to the sides by hundreds (or thousands) > >of kilometers every time some of the transmitter maintenance crew > >sneezes or a stray comet wanders nearby.. > > Well if you have a fleet of transmitter stations scattered over hundreds of > thousand, to millions of miles the crew screw-up should be handelable. And > you only are firing the beam for a few years, so the comets can be avoided > by scheduling the flight. > I am skeptical if it will be so easy. Anyway, trying this technologay on a robotic probe before an attempt with manned ships seems necessary to me. > As for the pole. Make the center of the beam have a noticable carriour > signal. Track the ship on that. > Huh? We are not talking about losing the beam, but about chasing the beam from outside. When the ship is outside the beam, it is even more outside the carrier signal... How can it track that? > >> >-- Zenon > >> > > >> >PS. Kelly, what happened to your charming spelling? > >> > I'm rely worrid about yor helth or somthing... ;-)) -- Z > >> > >> Should be worse with me typing these at night in bad light. > >> (desk lamp burned out.) ;) > >> > >Oh, just this is my problem - > >it should be (much) worse, but isn't. > >Why? (wondered Zenon). > > Dumb luck? Perhaps I'm statistically more likely to accidentally hit the > right key, then on purpose? ;) > Highly improbable... Your spelling exhibited marked pattern, unlikely to be reproduced by pure (not speaking about dumb) luck. But don't worry - it seems you are recovering already... ;-)) -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 11:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["194" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "20:23:53" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "10" "starship-design: Starwisp page" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA14846 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:29:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA14820 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:29:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-026.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsY4Q-000FM7C; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:29:30 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 193 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Starwisp page Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:23:53 +0100 I stumbled across this link. It's about the starwisp idea. Interstellar Flight http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/starflt.html We might invite the author, Geoffrey A. Landis to this group. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 11:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["570" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "20:23:47" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "19" "Re: starship-design: Fwd: Re: L I T" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA15379 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:29:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA15284 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:29:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-026.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsY4K-000FIPC; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:29:24 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 569 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Fwd: Re: L I T Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:23:47 +0100 Kelly, You wrote: >Guys, The attached sounds like recrutment from a flake group. Anyone hear of >these guys? United Earth Federation? Nope, never heard of it. Also I can't find a trace of them on the web (isn't that strange for a multinational organisation?). Furthermore I'd think it's a bit strange for a "federation" to use some free-email acount to approach "future members". And to top it off they seem not to know which name they like: "UEA" or "UEF" I suggest asking more information about them. (Like some old newsletters or projects they did.) Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 11:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1355" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "20:23:49" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "36" "Re: starship-design: Long range fuel tankers" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA16523 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:30:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA16318 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:30:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-026.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsY4M-000FLzC; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:29:26 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1354 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Long range fuel tankers Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:23:49 +0100 Hi Jim, >I have a question. I've been studying the fuel/sail and rair papers >(VERY INTERESTING) and a thought comes to me. Since decelerating at the >target is important (obviously!) Why not launch a HUGE stream of fuel >tankers along with the ship in such a fashion that when the time for >retro comes, It starts catching these tankers, with a line of them behind >the ship catching up with it. No can do... :) What would be the velocity of such tankers when you catch them? If as you suggest they are behind the ship, then they'll need similar high velocities to be there at about the same time. I could show math but don't really feel like it. Take for example one of the last tankers, they'll have to move with velocities of say 0.1c. In other words they will take at least 40 years (if not 100) to get there; We can't wait that long during deceleration. If as has been proposed earlier, you sent them in advance, you'll have to start that same time in advance. 40 or 100 Years has been considered a long time for such a project, both for changin technology and political and social willingness. And ignoring all that, it has been suggested that these tankers may not stay neatly in line during their long travel. All in all the disadvantages probably outweigh the energy savings of this method. Don't you hate this debunking ;) Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 11:31 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2601" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "20:23:51" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "59" "RE: starship-design: Preliminary Design for a Solar Laser Power Station" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA17622 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:31:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA17525 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:30:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-026.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsY4O-000FM2C; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:29:28 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2600 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Preliminary Design for a Solar Laser Power Station Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:23:51 +0100 Lee, >[L. Parker] Typical high power lasers are currently running between 1 >percent and 2 percent efficiency. A solar pumped carbon dioxide laser >has been run at 2 percent efficiency. The reason I was speculating on >the "solar laser" had to do with removing intervening conversion steps >and thereby removing possible sources of additional inefficiency. I know, but some of these intervening steps may increase efficiency. In theory we could just bundle the sunlight with big mirrors. I guess that if you would collect sunlight from a particular direction of the sun's surface, you might be able to make at as straight as a laser beam. Actually you might even make it straigther since its easier to use big apertures. >Using photovoltaic panels to convert sunlight to electricity will require >between 100 and 1,000 times much surface area of panels as a simple >reflector/concentrator. PV's (photovoltaic) may be combined with concentrators too. If the added complexity of using a concentrator is cheaper, they will likely use it. >Any sail that we design to reflect a particular >frequency of visible light is going to reflect ALL frequencies of >visible light. You've to explain that, as far as I know no material can reflect all frequencies just as well. I know we can do extremely well for a single frequency, but don't have numbers for a certain bandwith. >Solar panels combined with the right electrical lasers do quite well too. >And if you're talking about single frequencies, their efficiency is probably >10 times higher. > >[L. Parker] I happen to be partial to free electron lasers (I assume >that is what you mean when you say electrical lasers) but in order to >offset conversion inefficiencies you will need to increase their >output/input power ratios enormously. Sorry, with electrical I meant those that you can just plug into your wall-contact. If I understand correctly, they are just stimulated by a bright lamp. >To be fair, I have not seen ANY efficiency ratios for this "solar >laser" so it is all speculation. One of the reports tells about 5 Watt/m^2. I guess those square meters are at Earth surface. So assuming 50% of the solar radiation will penetrate the atmosphere, it will give 700 Watt/m^2. This would mean an efficiency of 5/700 = 0.7% I read that CO2 lasers can be 30% efficient. Together with PV's, that would be about 8% efficiency. I must admit though that most other lasers have much lower efficiencies (less than 2%). The drawback of CO2 laser is that it produces far infrared light, which may make reflectivity harder. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 12:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["608" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "21:05:24" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "24" "Re: starship-design: Starwisp page" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23175 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:06:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA22984 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:06:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id VAA13684; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 21:05:24 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707271905.VAA13684@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 607 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: Starwisp page Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 21:05:24 +0200 (MET DST) > From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) > > I stumbled across this link. It's about the starwisp idea. > > Interstellar Flight > http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/starflt.html > The site is strange, there is no indication concerning its creator/owner/maintainer. The article on starwisps is by a person, G.A. Landis, seemingly different than the owner of the page. > We might invite the author, Geoffrey A. Landis to this group. > Good idea. Also, on another page of the site is a link to something even more interesting to us - the Stardrive site: http://www.stardrive.org/ -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 13:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1269" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "22:01:44" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "33" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA20577 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:07:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA20553 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:06:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-025.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsZb5-000FPfC; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 22:07:19 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1268 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 22:01:44 +0100 Kelly, You apparently did sent this reply only to me... >The beam will have some variation over its size, and the interstellar medium >will have some varioation differences, or charge differences. Its gareenteed >that thinks won't be perfectly balenced in a system this big. Agreed. >>Oh wait, wrinkling is likely not an issue, since we will make the sail so >>that there is a slighly outward pressure that keeps the sail streched. Only >>very big (catastrophic) uneven beampressures will then wrinkle the sail. > >That extrenal streach might be very hard for a fuel/sail ship to do since the >ship is such a trivial % of the weight or load on the sail. The strech is provided by the beam and sail themselves. If the beam hits the sail under an angle, it will push the sail aside. Just like a parachute will be blown open and not flap or wrinkle in the middle. The only places that may wrinkle are the outsides. >>I wonder what the concequences of such high uneven beampressures will do. >>If only we could make parts of the sail transparent at will... > >You could fly a bunch of other sail ships around it. They could move in to >'shadow' part of the larger main sail if needed. Doesn't sound good. Accelerating more than one sail is hard enough. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 13:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["842" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "22:24:59" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "34" "Re: starship-design: Starwisp page" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA26143 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:30:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA26120 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:30:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-025.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wsZxa-000FQYC; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 22:30:34 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 841 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Starwisp page Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 22:24:59 +0100 Zenon replied to me: >> Interstellar Flight >> http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/starflt.html > >The site is strange, there is no indication concerning >its creator/owner/maintainer. >The article on starwisps is by a person, >G.A. Landis, seemingly different than the owner of the page. I also found a txt copy on http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/laser.txt Oh wait, he has his own site: http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/ Kelly, he's a SF writer too. >Also, on another page of the site is a link to something >even more interesting to us - the Stardrive site: > > http://www.stardrive.org/ Yes, I came across that, but couldn't find it back again (and thus couldn't mention it. They already found us, on the page http://www.stardrive.org/starship.html If you search for "sunsite.unc.edu", you'll find our address. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 20:03 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3241" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "23:02:23" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "94" "Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA28388 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:03:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout01.mail.aol.com (emout01.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.92]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA28375 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:03:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout01.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA28785; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:02:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970727230222_850010476@emout01.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3240 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:02:23 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/27/97 11:40:57 AM, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> From KellySt@aol.com Sun Jul 27 19:05:52 1997 >> >> In a message dated 7/27/97 8:50:36 AM, (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> >> >> From: KellySt@aol.com >> >> >> >> In a message dated 7/25/97 12:54:35 PM, (Zenon Kulpa) wrote: >> >> >> >> [...] >> >> >And assuming you will be able to find the beam in the vastness >> >> >of space... >> >> >> >> Beam is locked in a straight line for the flight duration. >> >> If you drift off, you'll know where you left it. >> >> >> >Will there be a nice striped poles along it to mark its course? >> >More importantly, it will not be straight - as we have calculated >> >some time ago, it will veer to the sides by hundreds (or thousands) >> >of kilometers every time some of the transmitter maintenance crew >> >sneezes or a stray comet wanders nearby.. >> >> Well if you have a fleet of transmitter stations scattered over hundreds of >> thousand, to millions of miles the crew screw-up should be handelable. And >> you only are firing the beam for a few years, so the comets can be avoided >> by scheduling the flight. >> >I am skeptical if it will be so easy. >Anyway, trying this technologay on a robotic probe >before an attempt with manned ships seems necessary to me. Easy might not be the forst term to come to mind. ;) But given the other... 'chalenges' a project like this should pose, keeping the beam on track should be comparatively easy. >> As for the pole. Make the center of the beam have a noticable carriour >> signal. Track the ship on that. >> >Huh? We are not talking about losing the beam, >but about chasing the beam from outside. >When the ship is outside the beam, >it is even more outside the carrier signal... >How can it track that? As to finding the beam if you drift off. You'll certainly notice which side the power drops off from last. Assuming a bit of inertial reference nav. systems you should be able to find it again. Baring that. Look for an area where the dust and debree has a noticable warming. A better question is how to steer back into the beam. The sail is too big and heavy to be easy to alter course. Also it would be tumbling by the uneven beam presure as it drifted off the beams hot core. As I suggested some time ago the beam will probably need to be at least ten times the diameter of the sail. So you have a little time to correct before your stuck lost in space. >> >> >-- Zenon >> >> > >> >> >PS. Kelly, what happened to your charming spelling? >> >> > I'm rely worrid about yor helth or somthing... ;-)) -- Z >> >> >> >> Should be worse with me typing these at night in bad light. >> >> (desk lamp burned out.) ;) >> >> >> >Oh, just this is my problem - >> >it should be (much) worse, but isn't. >> >Why? (wondered Zenon). >> >> Dumb luck? Perhaps I'm statistically more likely to accidentally hit the >> right key, then on purpose? ;) >> >Highly improbable... >Your spelling exhibited marked pattern, unlikely to be reproduced >by pure (not speaking about dumb) luck. >But don't worry - it seems you are recovering already... ;-)) Ah yes sunlight has restored me to my former creativity! >-- Zenon Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 20:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["876" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "23:05:44" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "32" "Re: starship-design: Fwd: Re: L I T" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA28771 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:06:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA28757 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:06:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA24341; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:05:44 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970727230539_717021934@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 875 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Fwd: Re: L I T Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:05:44 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/27/97 12:31:13 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >You wrote: >>Guys, The attached sounds like recrutment from a flake group. Anyone hear of >>these guys? United Earth Federation? > >Nope, never heard of it. Also I can't find a trace of them on the web (isn't >that strange for a multinational organisation?). >Furthermore I'd think it's a bit strange for a "federation" to use some >free-email acount to approach "future members". >And to top it off they seem not to know which name they like: "UEA" or "UEF" > >I suggest asking more information about them. (Like some old newsletters or >projects they did.) > > >Timothy Also sujestive is they used the term United Earth Federation, which seems like a play off star trek. I think they just want to get a free reference link out of us, but I'll ask. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 20:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1850" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "23:14:28" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "57" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA01077 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:15:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout03.mail.aol.com (emout03.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.94]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA01059 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:14:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout03.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA20366; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:14:28 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970727231427_-1910793135@emout03.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1849 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:14:28 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/27/97 2:17:31 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >You apparently did sent this reply only to me... Opps. Sorry. >>The beam will have some variation over its size, and the interstellar medium >>will have some varioation differences, or charge differences. Its gareenteed >>that thinks won't be perfectly balenced in a system this big. > >Agreed. > >>>Oh wait, wrinkling is likely not an issue, since we will make the sail so >>>that there is a slighly outward pressure that keeps the sail streched. Only >>>very big (catastrophic) uneven beampressures will then wrinkle the sail. >> >>That extrenal streach might be very hard for a fuel/sail ship to do since the >>ship is such a trivial % of the weight or load on the sail. > >The strech is provided by the beam and sail themselves. If the beam hits the >sail under an angle, it will push the sail aside. Just like a parachute will >be blown open and not flap or wrinkle in the middle. >The only places that may wrinkle are the outsides. That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a domed shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). >>>I wonder what the concequences of such high uneven beampressures will do. >>>If only we could make parts of the sail transparent at will... >> >>You could fly a bunch of other sail ships around it. They could move in to >>'shadow' part of the larger main sail if needed. > >Doesn't sound good. Accelerating more than one sail is hard enough. One sails loss is anothyers gain. Remember the mini sails could be only a few miles across. Tiny compared to the monster sail. Their plenty of extra power in the beam beyond the sails edges. Hundreds of thousands of miles to cruse around in. >Timothy Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Jul 27 20:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1061" "Sun" "27" "July" "1997" "23:17:01" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: Starwisp page" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA01529 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:17:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com (emout04.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.95]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA01519 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:17:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA05062; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:17:01 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970727231658_194421330@emout04.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1060 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Starwisp page Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:17:01 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/27/97 2:32:22 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Zenon replied to me: > >>> Interstellar Flight >>> http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/starflt.html >> >>The site is strange, there is no indication concerning >>its creator/owner/maintainer. >>The article on starwisps is by a person, >>G.A. Landis, seemingly different than the owner of the page. > >I also found a txt copy on > >http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/laser.txt > > >Oh wait, he has his own site: > >http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/ > >Kelly, he's a SF writer too. Yes a very major one over here. He also works at NASA in Cleveland Ohio. >>Also, on another page of the site is a link to something >>even more interesting to us - the Stardrive site: >> >> http://www.stardrive.org/ > >Yes, I came across that, but couldn't find it back again (and thus couldn't >mention it. >They already found us, on the page http://www.stardrive.org/starship.html >If you search for "sunsite.unc.edu", you'll find our address. > >Timothy :) Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 01:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1313" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "10:41:12" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "33" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id BAA02834 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:46:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id BAA02824 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:46:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-002.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wslS8-000FlMC; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:46:52 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1312 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:41:12 +0100 Kelly, >>The strech is provided by the beam and sail themselves. If the beam hits the >>sail under an angle, it will push the sail aside. Just like a parachute will >>be blown open and not flap or wrinkle in the middle. >>The only places that may wrinkle are the outsides. > >That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. > Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a domed >shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables... >>>You could fly a bunch of other sail ships around it. They could move in to >>>'shadow' part of the larger main sail if needed. >> >>Doesn't sound good. Accelerating more than one sail is hard enough. > >One sails loss is anothyers gain. Remember the mini sails could be only a >few miles across. Tiny compared to the monster sail. Their plenty of extra >power in the beam beyond the sails edges. Hundreds of thousands of miles to >cruse around in. True, but then the small sails should be able to accelerate faster than the mothership. This is not necessary a problem, since they likely don't have as much payload per sail-area. Hmmm, in theory they could stay a few light minutes behind us, and tell us if the beam wiggles. They'll have to use FTL-communication of course ;) Tim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 01:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["770" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "10:41:10" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "23" "RE: starship-design: Starwisp page" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id BAA02920 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:46:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id BAA02902 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:46:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-002.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wslS6-000FlLC; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:46:50 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 769 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Starwisp page Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:41:10 +0100 Lee, >Geoffrey Landis knows more about space technology than all of us put together. >In fact, he discovered some of the things we have discussed here. But you can >always ask, he seems to pay a fair amount of attention to sci.space.tech where >he frequently schools us in the errors of our ways. This sci.space.tech, what is it about? Is it mainly about current day tech, or is there also some speculation about future tech going on? I did some more checking and discovered at least on letter from Landis in the SD archives. He has been a member before... BTW. I always get an attachment like this from you: >Attachment Converted: D:\REstarsh When I look at the file, it is more or less garbage (probably compressed). What is it and why do you add it? Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 07:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2286" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "10:54:55" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "61" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA15687 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 07:52:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA15676 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 07:52:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id KLA16487; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:52:08 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970728.105456.8750.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-39,55-59 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2285 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:54:55 -0400 On Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:36:20 +0100 TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) writes: > >I wonder if these tugs are heavy enough to damp the sail. I also >wonder >where they get their power from (and how their outlet doesn't damage >the sail). > >You also write "start to flap or wrinkle", sounds like you assume they >are >flapping very slowly. >Anyhow, why would they start to flap? Flapping is caused by turbulence, >I >wonder where we would get that from. > >That leaves wrinkling, which can only be caused by uneven beam >pressures. >Uneven beam densities indeed may be really troublesome. They will not >only >wrinkle the sail, but also start to turn it (since the pressure on one >side >of the center of mass is bigger than on the other side). > >Oh wait, wrinkling is likely not an issue, since we will make the sail >so >that there is a slighly outward pressure that keeps the sail streched. >Only >very big (catastrophic) uneven beampressures will then wrinkle the >sail. > >I wonder what the concequences of such high uneven beampressures will >do. >If only we could make parts of the sail transparent at will... > >Timothy > > Uh, just a note folks, really quick (I'm working on my rebuttal for my long range tanker idea). Stretching the sail will not stop catastrophic vibrations. Even systems in pure tension suffer from vibrations. And one of the biggest fears of any engineer worth his salt is something called the RESONANT FREQUENCY (go talk to your engineering professors, ask them about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge). With many tension lines, a HUGE sail area, and a microwave wind that we must admit won't be absolutely homogeneous (nothing in life is, sigh), there will be some vibration in the sail (ever see a taut line vibrate in the wind?) If the frequency of this vibration approaches something called the resonant frequency, and this frequency may well be rather small in such a huge structure, the amplitudes of the vibrations will compound with increasing force until the structure fails. ANY structure, device or whatever, if operated upon continuously by a forcing function at or near its resonant frequency, WILL tear itself apart, even if the forcing function is relatively small. Okay guys, find me a solution for this. Jim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 08:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1352" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "11:34:06" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "46" "Re: starship-design: Long range fuel tankers" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA27977 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:34:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA27966 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:34:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id L^C16487; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:31:35 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970728.113407.5022.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-36,40-44 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1351 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Long range fuel tankers Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:34:06 -0400 On Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:23:49 +0100 TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) writes: >No can do... :) > >What would be the velocity of such tankers when you catch them? >If as you suggest they are behind the ship, then they'll need similar >high >velocities to be there at about the same time. I could show math but >don't >really feel like it. >Take for example one of the last tankers, they'll have to move with >velocities of say 0.1c. In other words they will take at least 40 >years (if >not 100) to get there; We can't wait that long during deceleration. > >If as has been proposed earlier, you sent them in advance, you'll have >to >start that same time in advance. 40 or 100 Years has been considered a >long >time for such a project, both for changin technology and political and >social willingness. > >And ignoring all that, it has been suggested that these tankers may >not stay >neatly in line during their long travel. > >All in all the disadvantages probably outweigh the energy savings of >this >method. > > >Don't you hate this debunking ;) > >Timothy > > Fair points all. Okay, why not launch tankers fast enough to catch the ship during the flight, building up a fuel reserve to decelerate with? The structure required to hold the fuel would not add greatly, especially since there is no sail. Let me know. Jim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 08:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2537" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "10:25:05" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "37" "RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA29912 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:40:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA29849 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:40:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p19.gnt.com [204.49.68.224]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA10063 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:40:26 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9B42.A1C7BD60@x2p7.gnt.com>; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:40:14 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9B42.A1C7BD60@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id IAA29870 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2536 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:25:05 -0500 Jim, Uh, just a note folks, really quick (I'm working on my rebuttal for my long range tanker idea). Stretching the sail will not stop catastrophic vibrations. Even systems in pure tension suffer from vibrations. And one of the biggest fears of any engineer worth his salt is something called the RESONANT FREQUENCY (go talk to your engineering professors, ask them about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge). With many tension lines, a HUGE sail area, and a microwave wind that we must admit won't be absolutely homogeneous (nothing in life is, sigh), there will be some vibration in the sail (ever see a taut line vibrate in the wind?) If the frequency of this vibration approaches something called the resonant frequency, and this frequency may well be rather small in such a huge structure, the amplitudes of the vibrations will compound with increasing force until the structure fails. ANY structure, device or whatever, if operated upon continuously by a forcing function at or near its resonant frequency, WILL tear itself apart, even if the forcing function is relatively small. [L. Parker] I remember the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, pretty impressive. But this is merely an engineering problem. The resonant frequency problem in bridges has long since been taken into account in bridge design. Most current concepts for sails are not solid sheets but more of a screen or net where the whole diameter is less than the wavelength of the radiation it is designed to reflect. This design has some inherent give or stretch that should serve to dampen any oscillations, resonant or otherwise. I don't remember ever seeing any of the authors of sail ideas ever covering this topic though. I would like to restate the objection to tugs though, this fabric is not going to be strong enough to be pulled on by a tug, it will simply rip. Any steering or other "pulling" would have to be done buy the tether lines and even that would have to be gentle. The thrust figures I've seen are for 0.05 G which is not very much. We might be able to get it up to 0.15 G with advanced materials, but you would still have to place these "tugs" at some sort of reinforced point on the sail. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Among the stars lies the proper study of mankind; Pope's aphorism gave only part of the truth, for the proper study of mankind is not merely Man, but Intelligence. Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, 1951 From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 09:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4193" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "09:36:00" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "100" "BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ]" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA18048 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:36:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA18025; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:36:00 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707281636.JAA18025@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707281630.JAA16641@darkwing.uoregon.edu> References: <199707281630.JAA16641@darkwing.uoregon.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 4192 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ] Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:36:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id JAA16627 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:30:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from garnet.tc.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 28 Jul 97 11:30:12 -0500 Received: from localhost by garnet.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 28 Jul 97 11:30:12 -0500 Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:30:11 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevin C Houston To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: Re: starship-design: Many Questions In-Reply-To: <33DC364D.10DC@sunherald.infi.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 27 Jul 1997, kyle wrote: > Kevin 'Tex' Houston wrote: > > > > kyle wrote: > > > > > > I come with questions: > > > > > > 1. What causes antigravity? Theoretically in the big bang? > > > > If you are refering to what I wrote, i must re-iterate that this was > > only my musings, and not a supported theory. using it as a basis for > > other ideas is not recommended. > > It is a good theory though. but it is not provable, it is only disprovable (all in all, better than most wild theories) IT is disporovable by noting that the speed of light is not constant but a function of the "curvature" and the "limit of elasticity" (for want of a better term) of the space-time. The up shot is, as the universe expands (or you manage to make the local space-time flatter... Cassimir?), the speed of light should increase. This increase may or may not be detectable with our current tech. The key value would be the percentage increase in the universe in a given time period, and whether or not we could detect such an increase in the speed of light (assuming we weren't blinded to such a possibility). If you ask why we haven't detected such a drift before, I'd say that it's because we never looked for it, and if the speed of light was faster than the accepted value, most scientists would adjust their clocks than re-write the physical models. Anyone know how fast the universe is expanding? as a percentage of total size? > > > > Of course, aiming anything in the w direction would be terribly > > difficult. imagine a 2-D being trying to aim his rocket in the third > > dimension. how could he possibly do it? > > Oh, it is possible, but involves some potentially dangerous > technologies. We can't even make the necessary part/object/thing yet. > Ever hear of artificial quantum singularities? > (man-made micro black holes). Yes, but I fail to see how they could "point" into the w direction. Anymore than a black hole in flatland could allow a rocket engine to point outside the surface of the universe. (black holes bend the surface (or volume) but things within are still confined to it. > > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- BEGIN STUPID IDEA-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- DO NOT TRY THIS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- IT WOULD BE VERY DANGEROUS -=-=-=-=- > > > > I suppose if you had a *really* strong spherical container, with a very > > powerful explosive inside, the force might be great enough to rip a hole > > into the w direction thereby producing a noticeable temporary increase > > or decrease in the local gravity. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- END STUPID IDEA -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > > Really strong: does this mean stronger than stainless steel? > Powerful explosive: how powerful? an A-bomb?? Container must be stronger than the space-time. the explosive must be stronger than the spacetime, and not as strong as the container. > Don't worry, I won't try this. Just gathering info. glad to hear it, the consequences of having a strong, but not strong enough container would be a catastrophic explosion (with shrapnel) and the stronger the container, the more damage. -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 09:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1634" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "09:37:01" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "44" "BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ]" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA19190 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:37:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA19140; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:37:01 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707281637.JAA19140@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707252044.NAA28654@darkwing.uoregon.edu> References: <199707252044.NAA28654@darkwing.uoregon.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1633 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ] Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:37:01 -0700 (PDT) owner-starship-design writes: >From stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu Fri Jul 25 13:44:43 1997 Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id NAA28616 for ; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 13:44:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from garnet.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Fri, 25 Jul 97 15:44:37 -0500 Received: from localhost by garnet.tc.umn.edu; Fri, 25 Jul 97 15:44:37 -0500 Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:44:36 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevin C Houston To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper In-Reply-To: <19970723.230425.17582.0.jimaclem@juno.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 23 Jul 1997 jimaclem@juno.com wrote: > > On Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:17:13 -0500 "L. Parker" > writes: > >Kelly, > > > >Why don't you try spinning the sail into shape? Ever seen a fisherman > >cast a throw net? He gives a little flick with his wrist to make it > >spin open. > > > >Lee > > > > > This would work, but with the sail diameters I've seen, the centripetal > acceleration required to keep the sail relatively flat (thought it would > still present a convex face to the transmitter) will tear the sail apart. Huh? in zero gravity, even the slightest rotation will open up the sail. and since the acceleration imposed by the beam will be evenly distributed, the sail should not have to spin very fast. Kevin From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 09:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["112" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "11:48:04" "-0500" "Kevin C Houston" "hous0042@garnet.tc.umn.edu" nil "6" "starship-design: mail problems" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA23628 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:48:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id JAA23578 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:48:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from garnet.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 28 Jul 97 11:48:05 -0500 Received: from localhost by garnet.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 28 Jul 97 11:48:04 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Kevin C Houston Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 111 From: Kevin C Houston Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: mail problems Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:48:04 -0500 (CDT) Sorry for the bounces peepls. Apparently the mail demon is no longer translating my reply-to address. Kevin From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 13:25 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["431" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "22:20:28" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "15" "Re: starship-design: Long range fuel tankers" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA26431 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:25:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA26309 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:25:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-023.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wswMq-000HNSC; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:26:08 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 430 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Long range fuel tankers Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:20:28 +0100 Jim, You wrote: >Fair points all. Okay, why not launch tankers fast enough to catch the >ship during the flight, building up a fuel reserve to decelerate with? >The structure required to hold the fuel would not add greatly, especially >since there is no sail. Why not take these tankers with the main ship right from the start... Accelerating them seperately will cost just as much energy as accelerating them together. Tim From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 13:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["753" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "22:20:25" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "22" "starship-design: Resonance" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA27047 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:26:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA27028 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:26:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-023.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wswMm-000HMdC; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:26:04 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 752 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Resonance Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:20:25 +0100 Jim & Lee, About resonance in a sail: Resonance may indeed occur, but can be easely removed. Lee, the wavelength of the beamed photons isn't of any consideration. But I wasn't suggesting that at all. The frequency we're talking about was a possible density change in the beam itself (eg. more power, less power) Although it is unlikely to occur in a regular fashion (ie. have a regular frequency). We probably can make the tension in the sail so that it is far above or below "regular" beam-density-frequencies. Just irregular density changes likely don't make the sail start to resonate. And indeed this resonance frequency is likely to be small. Since it is so small, we may have enough time to react to it. Eg. Use Kelly's minisails. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 13:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["964" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "22:20:26" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "25" "starship-design: Sail wrinkle" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA27223 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:27:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA27191 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:27:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-023.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wswMo-000HNPC; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:26:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 963 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Sail wrinkle Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:20:26 +0100 Kevin, >> This would work, but with the sail diameters I've seen, the centripetal >> acceleration required to keep the sail relatively flat (thought it would >> still present a convex face to the transmitter) will tear the sail apart. > >Huh? in zero gravity, even the slightest rotation will open up the sail. >and since the acceleration imposed by the beam will be evenly distributed, >the sail should not have to spin very fast. If it was a sail without a ship attached, then yes, it would stay flat (assuming the beam density was the same everywhere). But the tethers that go from the ship to the sail are not perpendicular to the sail (unless you make it parabolic) and thus will excert a force on the sail that is pointed to its center. My last suggestion to get rid of uneven force distribution in the sail: We could localy change the sail angle (by changing the length of a few tethers) to compensate force that wants to wrinkle the sail. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 14:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["348" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "15:08:06" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "12" "starship-design: Fuel supplies" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA14444 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:08:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA14418 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:08:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-80.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-80.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.80]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA07229 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:08:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33DD1846.111D@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 347 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Fuel supplies Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:08:06 -0700 Greetings: What if we latched onto a comet in the outer solar system? One that isdormant due to its distance from the sun, and then use the ice in the comet for fuel? It should work, although furthur studies are necessary. Anyone care to follow this up? Kyle Mcallister Think of the other resources this could provide! (water, chemicals, etc.) From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 14:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4092" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "16:13:54" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "91" "RE: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ]" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA24631 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:27:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA24612 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:27:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p21.gnt.com [204.49.68.226]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA32520 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:27:42 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9B73.29628CC0@x2p7.gnt.com>; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:27:37 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9B73.29628CC0@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4091 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ] Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:13:54 -0500 Steve or Kevin, I'm not sure who this message came from... > It is a good theory though. but it is not provable, it is only disprovable (all in all, better than most wild theories) IT is disporovable by noting that the speed of light is not constant but a function of the "curvature" and the "limit of elasticity" (for want of a better term) of the space-time. [L. Parker] No, the speed of light IS constant, within the frame work of space-time. TIME and SPACE are not constant. But to say that it is a function of space time would be misleading. I'm not sure how to say this without contradicting myself, or at least seeming to, and I don't want to tell the story of the balloon again (someone who has it archived can feel free to repost it), but here goes...As space expands or contracts and/or time varies the speed of light WHICH IS A CONSTANT within the frame work of space time must vary EXACTLY with it. Speed, or velocity if you prefer, is ALWAYS measured in the context of space time and since the change in space time and the "change" in the speed of light are exactly the same YOU CAN NEVER MEASURE A CHANGE in the velocity of light. Clear as mud, right? Oh well, I tried. The up shot is, as the universe expands (or you manage to make the local space-time flatter... Cassimir?), the speed of light should increase. This increase may or may not be detectable with our current tech. [L. Parker] The Casimir effect does not have anything to do with flattening space time. It simply creates a region of space in which few if any atoms can exist and in which virtual photons seem to turn into real photons spontaneously, due to a "negative" energy gradient which exists between the plates. Nature abhors a vacuum... The key value would be the percentage increase in the universe in a given time period, and whether or not we could detect such an increase in the speed of light (assuming we weren't blinded to such a possibility). If you ask why we haven't detected such a drift before, I'd say that it's because we never looked for it, and if the speed of light was faster than the accepted value, most scientists would adjust their clocks than re-write the physical models. [L. Parker] We have looked for it and there is recent experimental evidence, which has yet to be verified, that there is a difference in the rate of expansion of the universe in different directions. Anyone know how fast the universe is expanding? as a percentage of total size? [L. Parker] No, but there are lots of guesses. It depends on which set of assumptions you make for the initial (starting) conditions. Scientists can't seem to agree. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- BEGIN STUPID IDEA-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- DO NOT TRY THIS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- IT WOULD BE VERY DANGEROUS -=-=-=-=- > > > > I suppose if you had a *really* strong spherical container, with a very > > powerful explosive inside, the force might be great enough to rip a hole > > into the w direction thereby producing a noticeable temporary increase > > or decrease in the local gravity. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- END STUPID IDEA -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > > Really strong: does this mean stronger than stainless steel? > Powerful explosive: how powerful? an A-bomb?? Container must be stronger than the space-time. the explosive must be stronger than the spacetime, and not as strong as the container. > Don't worry, I won't try this. Just gathering info. glad to hear it, the consequences of having a strong, but not strong enough container would be a catastrophic explosion (with shrapnel) and the stronger the container, the more damage. [L. Parker] Please don't, and I thought Kyle was dangerous...(sorry Kyle ;-) Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- I stared into the sky, As wondering men have always done Since beuty and the stars were one, Though none so hard as I. Ralph Hodgson, 1871 - 1962, Song of Honor From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 14:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([t nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["660" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "16:18:37" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "19" "RE: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ]" nil nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA24761 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:28:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA24713 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:28:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p21.gnt.com [204.49.68.226]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA32532 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:27:56 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9B73.333CD3E0@x2p7.gnt.com>; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:27:54 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9B73.333CD3E0@x2p7.gnt.com> From: "L. Parker" To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ] Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:18:37 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id OAA24738 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Sender: owner-starship-design Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 659 Kevin? >Huh? in zero gravity, even the slightest rotation will open up the sail. >and since the acceleration imposed by the beam will be evenly distributed, >the sail should not have to spin very fast. Umm, you may be right. Since the sail fabric as a whole is designed to withstand a pressure capable of producing 0.05 G (or more if we can improve the design) then we only need to keep the initial rotational torque below this value. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Hitch your wagon to a star. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 14:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([t nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["512" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "16:24:43" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "17" "RE: starship-design: Sail wrinkle" nil nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA24766 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:28:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA24737 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:28:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p21.gnt.com [204.49.68.226]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA32537 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:28:00 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9B73.3532D780@x2p7.gnt.com>; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:27:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9B73.3532D780@x2p7.gnt.com> From: "L. Parker" To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Sail wrinkle Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:24:43 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Sender: owner-starship-design Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 511 Timothy, >My last suggestion to get rid of uneven force distribution in the sail: >We could locally change the sail angle (by changing the length of a few >tethers) to compensate force that wants to wrinkle the sail. Now we are talking about the ORIGINAL SAIL DESIGN! Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Hold the lighted lamp on high, Be a star in someone's sky. Henry Burton, Pass It On From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 15:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["662" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "16:33:44" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "12" "RE: starship-design: Fuel supplies" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA14099 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:16:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA14062 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:15:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p7.gnt.com (x2p21.gnt.com [204.49.68.226]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA03157 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:15:56 -0500 Received: by x2p7.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9B79.E1F047E0@x2p7.gnt.com>; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:15:44 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9B79.E1F047E0@x2p7.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id PAA14065 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 661 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Fuel supplies Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:33:44 -0500 Kyle, Its a good idea, but I think some science fiction author already thought of it. The problem lies in the composition of cometary ice and its appropriateness as fuel. Even, supposing that we are talking about simple secondary reaction mass for an antimatter rocket (which could extract the primary reaction mass from the cometary ice) it is still pretty difficult. But it would probably work. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- When I die, I want to go peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather... not screaming like the people in his car. From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 15:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["311" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "17:18:40" "-0500" "Kevin C Houston" "hous0042@garnet.tc.umn.edu" nil "12" "starship-design: my wild theory" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA15049 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:18:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id PAA15005 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:18:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from garnet.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 28 Jul 97 17:18:41 -0500 Received: from localhost by garnet.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 28 Jul 97 17:18:41 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Kevin C Houston Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 310 From: Kevin C Houston Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: my wild theory Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:18:40 -0500 (CDT) Lee, I haven't bothered to quote your letter, because you seem to have something out of context. I wasn't saying that my theory is true or not, only that if it was, then a slowly drifting speed of light would be the result. check back in the archives, or let me mail it to you if you dont have it. Kevin From owner-starship-design Mon Jul 28 15:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["585" "Mon" "28" "July" "1997" "16:33:28" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "19" "Re: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ]" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA21810 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:33:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA21765 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:33:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-80.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-91.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.91]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA10881 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:33:39 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33DD2C47.61F4@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BC9B73.29628CC0@x2p7.gnt.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 584 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ] Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:33:28 -0700 L. Parker wrote: > > [L. Parker] Please don't, and I thought Kyle was dangerous...(sorry Kyle ;-) No apology necessary, for you speak the truth. I am a scientist, a colledge student, and a teenager. What could be more dangerous? (heh heh heh) > > Lee Parker > > (o o) > ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- > I stared into the sky, > As wondering men have always done > Since beuty and the stars were one, > Though none so hard as I. > > Ralph Hodgson, 1871 - 1962, Song of Honor From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 29 14:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["60" "Tue" "29" "July" "1997" "16:41:03" "-0500" "Kevin C Houston" "hous0042@garnet.tc.umn.edu" "" "4" "starship-design: Silence?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA26974 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 14:41:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id OAA26959 for ; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 14:41:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from garnet.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Tue, 29 Jul 97 16:41:04 -0500 Received: from localhost by garnet.tc.umn.edu; Tue, 29 Jul 97 16:41:04 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Kevin C Houston Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 59 From: Kevin C Houston Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Silence? Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:41:03 -0500 (CDT) Umm, am I the only one who hasn't gotten any mail today? From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 29 14:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["148" "Tue" "29" "July" "1997" "14:42:31" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "6" "starship-design: Silence?" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA27369 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 14:42:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA27320; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 14:42:31 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707292142.OAA27320@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 147 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: Kevin C Houston Cc: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Silence? Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 14:42:31 -0700 (PDT) Kevin C Houston writes: > Umm, am I the only one who hasn't gotten any mail today? There just haven't been any list postings today. Until now. From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 29 16:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2923" "Tue" "29" "July" "1997" "16:04:05" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "75" "starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA29298 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:04:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id QAA29284 for ; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:04:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA06418; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:04:05 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA16599; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:04:05 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707292304.QAA16599@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2922 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:04:05 -0700 Yes, things have been quiet. How about some scary numbers to deaden things even more... I was working out the details of the deceleration scheme I mentioned, converting the incident sunlight into accelerated material, using reaction mass from the sail, and beaming it forward to slow down. The numbers look great when you have a 100% efficiency from light to particles. Things get rapidly worse as the efficiency goes down. For any efficiency percentage, n (n<1), there is an optimum ratio between the kinetic energy you should impart to the beam and the rest energy of the beam. For n<0.5 the following formula is an excellent approximation: E (rest mass) / E(kinetic energy) = [2/(n^2)] - 1.5 This ratio is 6.5 for a 50% efficiency, and 198.5 for a 10% conversion efficiency. The n^-2 dependance makes things get progressively worse as the efficiency continues to decline. A big number here, by the way, means you are throwing the fuel out slower. While this is a plus from an engineering standpoint, it's a big minus when you consider the maximum speed that this method will let you decelerate from. As Steve recently pointed out, for a given amount of Energy+Rest Mass you get the most momentum by throwing things out as close to light speed as possible. A slow beam means we're not getting as much momentum to slow us down. So: the equation for the maximum speed that this method will allow you to decelerate from is the following: Max speed = c ln(original Mass/final Mass) x {[(4-2n^2)^0.5]-1}/[(2/n^2)-1.5] This is a strange enough formula that I'll plug in a few numbers. For 50% efficiency, this becomes: Max Speed = 0.134c ln(Mo/Mf) So if you want to decelerate from .3c you need the sail to be 1.24 as massive as the rest of the ship. (I didn't do this relativistically, so any number higher than .3c is probably suspect) For a 30% efficiency this drops to: Max Speed = 0.046c ln(Mo/Mf) Now you need the sail to be 5.5 ship masses to stop from 0.3c For 10% efficiency, we're way down to: Max speed = 0.005c ln(Mo/Mf), and we now need 59 times the ship mass in the sail. Things are getting worse logarithmically. And keep in mind that the "efficiency" number doesn't even take into account any "down time" of the particle accelerator; if the accelerator breaks down for a few days the beamed power starts accelerating the ship again, and there's nothing one can do about it until the accelerator is fixed. So, given that the conversion efficiency from light to particles will probably never be better than 10%, this technique has some serious problems. But, on the other hand, it's the only "simple" way to slow down... Adding in extra energy from a fuel-sail concept or anti-matter, or adding in extra reaction mass from separate rocket capsules will help the situation, so we need to keep thinking about them. Ken From owner-starship-design Tue Jul 29 16:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1273" "Tue" "29" "July" "1997" "16:17:32" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "21" "starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA03993 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:17:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA03982 for ; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:17:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA03592 for ; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:16:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA16183; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:17:32 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707292317.QAA16183@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707292304.QAA16599@watt> References: <199707292304.QAA16599@watt> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1272 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:17:32 -0700 The efficiency problem shows up in other areas. Another blast from the past I'll have to dig up is the derivation of fuel-to-payload ratios for various possible fuel sources. In summary, for a self-powered starship to get to high relativistic speeds (I defined that as 0.8 c or greater) you need 4-5 times as much matter+antimatter as payload just to boost up to about 0.8 c (square to get the amount need to decelerate again; square again for the amount needed for a round trip without refueling). And it's much worse for anything else. Fusion would probably require lugging an ice moon around for fuel, at best. Has anyone else thought of using a lightsail and beamed power to accelerate, and a ramscoop to decelerate? I think the concept has gone by before, but it seems to me to be the best combination. You don't have to carry much fuel, except for maneuvering; you get free braking _and_ more fuel from the ramscoop, and maybe you can even afford to build another beamer in the target system for a return trip. This also turns the main disadvantage of a ramscoop (drag against the interstellar medium) into an advantage. There's almost no need to fuse the collected hydrogen unless you want improved braking efficiency once you get slowed down to low speed. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 07:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1714" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "10:38:00" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "43" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA28538 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 07:37:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA28513 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 07:37:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id KKP03663; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 10:35:18 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970730.103800.11974.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199707292304.QAA16599@watt> <199707292317.QAA16183@tzadkiel.efn.org> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-34,39-41 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1713 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 10:38:00 -0400 On Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:17:32 -0700 Steve VanDevender writes: >The efficiency problem shows up in other areas. Another blast from >the >past I'll have to dig up is the derivation of fuel-to-payload ratios >for >various possible fuel sources. In summary, for a self-powered >starship >to get to high relativistic speeds (I defined that as 0.8 c or >greater) >you need 4-5 times as much matter+antimatter as payload just to boost >up >to about 0.8 c (square to get the amount need to decelerate again; >square again for the amount needed for a round trip without >refueling). >And it's much worse for anything else. Fusion would probably require >lugging an ice moon around for fuel, at best. > >Has anyone else thought of using a lightsail and beamed power to >accelerate, and a ramscoop to decelerate? I think the concept has >gone >by before, but it seems to me to be the best combination. You don't >have to carry much fuel, except for maneuvering; you get free braking >_and_ more fuel from the ramscoop, and maybe you can even afford to >build another beamer in the target system for a return trip. This >also >turns the main disadvantage of a ramscoop (drag against the >interstellar >medium) into an advantage. There's almost no need to fuse the >collected >hydrogen unless you want improved braking efficiency once you get >slowed >down to low speed. > Sigh, I'm beginning not to like the sail concept as much. It is simple and elegant, but between the deceleration problems, plus the difficulties of such mega-structure operation, and the power beam generation problems, I think the use of matter-antimatter and/or fusion ideas may be the ultimate best way to go. Jim From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 09:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["7125" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "09:23:37" "-0700" "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" "hous0042@garnet.tc.umn.edu" nil "136" "BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [\"Kevin 'Tex' Houston\" ]" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA00050 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:23:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA00037; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:23:37 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707301623.JAA00037@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707300349.UAA22394@darkwing.uoregon.edu> References: <199707300349.UAA22394@darkwing.uoregon.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 7124 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from ["Kevin 'Tex' Houston" ] Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:23:37 -0700 (PDT) n.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Tue, 29 Jul 97 22:49:29 -0500 Message-ID: <33DEB8AD.1A89@tc.umn.edu> Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 22:44:46 -0500 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Reply-To: hous0042@tc.umn.edu X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Starship design group Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme References: <199707292304.QAA16599@watt> <199707292317.QAA16183@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Steve VanDevender wrote: > > Has anyone else thought of using a lightsail and beamed power to > accelerate, and a ramscoop to decelerate? I think the concept has gone > by before, but it seems to me to be the best combination. You don't > have to carry much fuel, except for maneuvering; you get free braking > _and_ more fuel from the ramscoop, and maybe you can even afford to > build another beamer in the target system for a return trip. This also > turns the main disadvantage of a ramscoop (drag against the interstellar > medium) into an advantage. There's almost no need to fuse the collected > hydrogen unless you want improved braking efficiency once you get slowed > down to low speed. Hey! That's a great idea. The "sail" could easily become the "scoop" (well, not easily, but not impossible). We'd still have to bring some fuel/RM with us so we can continue to slow down from less than ramjet speed. This could also solve the turning around problem. Here is a (bad) cross sectional of the scoop/sail system. Please note that this is meant to be conceptual and descriptive and not representative. Any required support structure has been left out for clarity. Drawing does not necessarily reflect the author's true opinion on the shape of the scoop/sail. That is because the author does not have one yet. Drawing is not to scale. WARNING ASCII ART AHEAD. DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! / / / Scoop / Sail Beam from earth | / <~~WW~~wWw~~ww~w~w~ww~~wWw~~WW |<-/ | H+ | _____________ \ \ / \ \ \ | RM TANK | `--> \____[X]_\_____________/__ _____________________________ | _________________________| / / [X] / \ / / | | RM TANK | H+ / | \_____________/ | | | V | crew sections | \ \ \ The beam is a dual frequency UV/MW (Ultraviolet/Microwave) Most of the energy is in the MW part, but the low-power UV is at just the right frequency to ionize hydrogen atoms into H+ (13.6 eV). Hopefully, this will also clear away the larger debris. The sail is a wire mesh made for absorbing microwaves and converting them to electricity (which has a near 90% conversion factor, Ken). When the electrical load on the wires is removed, the mesh should reflect the microwaves. During the accel phase, the mesh acts as a sail. The holes in the mesh allow the UV portion to pass right through. During this phase, the mesh is slightly charged, to encourage Hydrogen ions to pass through the center of the ship. I'm not sure if some of the MW should be converted and used to accelerate the H+, or if there is more momentum to be gained by reflection. if more momentum can be gained from accelerating the ions, then that would make the mesh design much easier. This looks more and more like the MARS design but designed to scoop RM instead of bringing it with. During the decel phase, the mesh and reaction chamber are charged to extract energy from the on-rushing hydrogen ions, and blast them back toward the target system. So there are two sources of power, the kinetic energy of the craft and the beam from earth. Adding fusion to the mix might not be required, nor would the ship have to 'eat' the scoop/sail as it went along. once the ship is below a certain speed, the H+ mass flow will not be very massive, and the ship will have to switch to on-board RM. The large RM tanks would protect the crew from microwave radiation during the trip. positioning half of the RM tanks ahead would also protect from incident cosmic rays. And a set of tanks can be used for RM as the fuel is used up. The scoop/sail might be best designed to be in one of two modes depending on the function of scooping or sailing. It might also be best to dispense with reflection of the incoming beam altogether. a diode doesn't care which direction the energy comes from, if it's the right frequency, it gets absorbed and converted to electrical energy. The sail might be best described as an antenna. And since the scoop is where much of the energy will used, it seems to make sense to co-locate it with the energy gathering gear. However we do this, I think we must be resigned to the fact that this is never going to be a practical method of travel because of the cost involved. We should hunt for the lowest cost, of course, but I don't think we should scrap a workable solution simply because it costs too much energy or money. Probably none of our designs will ever be created, and future generations will smile slightly, just as we do when viewing Leonardo da Vinci's flying machines. Every one of his designs was technically workable, he only lacked a powerful, lightweight motor. Now that we have internal combustion engines which produce energy many orders of magnitude above what Leonardo could have possibly dreamed about; we find that jets and fixed wings are better and faster. I think the same will be true of interstellar flight. I think we _will_ solve the lightspeed and the ZPE barriers, but not anytime soon, (anything that takes longer than about 50 years is useless to me anyways ;) and not in any way that we are capable of deducing today. And that's when the exploration of the universe will begin. But I still think it would be fun to see what we can come up with using current Tech. -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 09:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1362" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "18:52:47" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "33" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA13857 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:58:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA13839 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:58:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-012.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wtc4x-000HcYC; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 18:58:27 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1361 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 18:52:47 +0100 >The efficiency problem shows up in other areas. Another blast from the >past I'll have to dig up is the derivation of fuel-to-payload ratios for >various possible fuel sources. In summary, for a self-powered starship >to get to high relativistic speeds (I defined that as 0.8 c or greater) >you need 4-5 times as much matter+antimatter as payload just to boost up >to about 0.8 c Using just as much antimatter as matter is a waste of energy for most velocities! It would be more likely that you'd use only 2 times as much anti-matter as payload. While also using about 4 times as much matter as payload. Even though you carry more mass, your energy bill will decrease. (Assuming you don't have a source of free anti-matter.) >Has anyone else thought of using a lightsail and beamed power to >accelerate, and a ramscoop to decelerate? If indeed you can use the interstellar hydrogen as a wall to slam onto, then that always is a better option. (Unless you've to do a lot of trouble to build that wall, by gathering the hydrogen.) In theory if collecting the hydrogen is not to difficult, you could indeed gain energy instead of needing it. I do know nothing about collecting interstellar atoms with as scoop. There are calculations on the shelf (somewhere), but I always doubt about scaling up such usually small scoops to the sizes we need. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 09:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1232" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "18:52:45" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "41" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA14134 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:58:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA14113 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:58:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-012.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wtc4v-000HcWC; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 18:58:25 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1231 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 18:52:45 +0100 Ken, You did some calculations: >For any efficiency percentage, n (n<1), there is an optimum ratio >between the kinetic energy you should impart to the beam and the rest >energy of the beam. For n<0.5 the following formula is an excellent >approximation: It is? Please show your derivation... I've doubts about your mass-ratios (they are too optimistic). >E (rest mass) / E(kinetic energy) = [2/(n^2)] - 1.5 >So: the equation for the maximum speed that this method will allow you >to decelerate from is the following: > >Max speed = c ln(original Mass/final Mass) > x {[(4-2n^2)^0.5]-1}/[(2/n^2)-1.5] Once again, I'd like an explanation/derivation >This is a strange enough formula that I'll plug in a few numbers. For >50% efficiency, this becomes: > >Max Speed = 0.134c ln(Mo/Mf) > >So if you want to decelerate from .3c you need the sail to be 1.24 as >massive as the rest of the ship. (I didn't do this relativistically, so >any number higher than .3c is probably suspect) Shouldn't that be: you need the sail to be 0.24 as massive as the rest of the ship? (Ie. a zero instead of an one) Mo=Mship+Msail and Mship=Mf Mo=1.24*Mf --> Mf+Msail=1.24*Mf -> Msail=0.24*Mf Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 10:09 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1122" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "10:08:55" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "22" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA18436 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 10:09:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA18422 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 10:09:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA07883; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 10:08:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA18660; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 10:08:55 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707301708.KAA18660@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1121 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 10:08:55 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > >The efficiency problem shows up in other areas. Another blast from the > >past I'll have to dig up is the derivation of fuel-to-payload ratios for > >various possible fuel sources. In summary, for a self-powered starship > >to get to high relativistic speeds (I defined that as 0.8 c or greater) > >you need 4-5 times as much matter+antimatter as payload just to boost up > >to about 0.8 c > > Using just as much antimatter as matter is a waste of energy for most > velocities! I meant that the fuel mass (which is matter and antimatter in equal parts) is 4-5 times the mass of the payload. In a ship that carries its own fuel you get the lowest fuel-payload ratio by having the highest-velocity exhaust. Photons are optimal; the mixture of photons and high-velocity particles you get from matter/antimatter reactions is about the best you can do. If you react a quantity of antimatter with a larger quantity of matter then you get slower exhaust velocity and a higher fuel-payload ratio, and things get more or less exponentially worse with decreasing exhaust velocity. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 11:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["592" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "20:53:14" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "18" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA01658 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 11:59:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA01629 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 11:59:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wtdxW-000HijC; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 20:58:54 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 591 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 20:53:14 +0100 Jim wrote >Sigh, I'm beginning not to like the sail concept as much. It is simple >and elegant, but between the deceleration problems, plus the difficulties >of such mega-structure operation, and the power beam generation problems, >I think the use of matter-antimatter and/or fusion ideas may be the >ultimate best way to go. Glad you realize that. (Actually that was my motivation for making that summary about beaming ;) However as long as anti-matter can't be made much more efficient than transmission & transform efficiencies for beaming then it isn't likely to be used. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 12:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3312" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "12:12:29" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "99" "starship-design: Fun with Math" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA07230 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:12:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id MAA07215 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:12:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA15820; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:12:28 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA23351; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:12:29 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707301912.MAA23351@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3311 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Fun with Math Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:12:29 -0700 Timothy writes: >You did some calculations: >>For any efficiency percentage, n (n<1), there is an optimum ratio >>between the kinetic energy you should impart to the beam and the rest >>energy of the beam. For n<0.5 the following formula is an excellent >>approximation: > >It is? Please show your derivation... I've doubts about your mass-ratios >(they are too optimistic). Okay - but don't read this message if you don't care for the math! The factor you want to optimize is your total change in velocity; you want to slow down as much as possible. My quick derivation of the non- relativistic rocket equation gave me: total delta v = dP/dM ln(Mf/Mo), which seemed to ring a bell. Here dP/dM is the momentum lost per mass that the ship loses. We want to maximize this value. For the beamed particles, let's call the ratio between the rest mass energy and the kinetic energy A, so that: E (rest mass) / E (beam kinetic energy) = A, or M = A E / c^2, where from now on E is the kinetic Energy you put into the beam Plugging M into my good ol' momentum equation, P = {(E^2/c^2) + 2 E M}^0.5 P (beam) = E/c (1+ 2A)^0.5 But don't forget that the beamed power is speeding you up, so this momentum loss is offset by an amount P = E/c (Where E is the same energy you get from the photons and put into the material). So now your total delta P (for 100% efficiency) is P = E/c {(1+2A)^0.5 - 1} With a light -> particle efficiency, n (n<1) this becomes P = E/c {n(1+2A)^0.5 -1} You lose stopping power by a factor of n, but the "pushing" power from the beam is just as large! Solving for P/M, we plug in the earlier formula for M, the E's cancel, and dP/dM = c {n(1+2A)^0.5 -1}/A In order to maximize this value (which will in turn maximize delta V), we take the derivative with respect to A and set it to zero. It's a quadratic, but I found the correct, exact root to be: Define B = (1/n^2) -1 A = (B^2 +B)^0.5 + B which approximates (very closely for n<0.5) to: A = 2B + 0.5 = (2/n^2) - 1.5 This gives us the optimum "speed" of the beamed particles. The reason that there's an optimum is that all the energy this scheme uses is given by the beamed power, which is in turn accelerating the ship forward. You want to use low energy/mass ratios to counter this added momentum (for a given energy), but you want to use high energy/mass ratios to get the most stopping power (for a given mass). [The big assumption here is that you can't turn any of your sail mass into energy; all the energy comes from the beam, and all the mass comes from the sail] The optimum lies somewhere inbetween. You can then go back and plug this into the equation for delta V, and you'll get the equation I gave earlier. No guarantee I haven't made a mistake, though... >>Max Speed = 0.134c ln(Mo/Mf) >> >>So if you want to decelerate from .3c you need the sail to be 1.24 as >>massive as the rest of the ship. (I didn't do this relativistically, so >>any number higher than .3c is probably suspect) > >Shouldn't that be: you need the sail to be 0.24 as massive as the rest of >the ship? (Ie. a zero instead of an one) > >Mo=Mship+Msail and Mship=Mf > >Mo=1.24*Mf --> Mf+Msail=1.24*Mf -> Msail=0.24*Mf Unfortunately, I already subtracted the 1; Mo = 2.24*Mf, Msail = 1.24*Mf. Ken From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 12:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2006" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "21:53:47" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "48" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA26223 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:58:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA26201 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:58:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-004.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wteu3-000HlnC; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 21:59:23 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2005 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 21:53:47 +0100 Steve, > > Using just as much antimatter as matter is a waste of energy for most > > velocities! > >I meant that the fuel mass (which is matter and antimatter in equal >parts) is 4-5 times the mass of the payload. I know. >In a ship that carries its own fuel you get the lowest fuel-payload >ratio by having the highest-velocity exhaust. Photons are optimal; the >mixture of photons and high-velocity particles you get from >matter/antimatter reactions is about the best you can do. If you react >a quantity of antimatter with a larger quantity of matter then you get >slower exhaust velocity and a higher fuel-payload ratio, and things get >more or less exponentially worse with decreasing exhaust velocity. I'm not sure what you mean with "things" but it simply is not true that higher exhaust velocities are best. Each final starship velocity has its own optimum for particle exhaust velocity. This optimum is determined by finding the minimal energy requirements. So there is a certain exhaust velocity where the energy requirements are lowest, given a certain final starship velocity. This means that having an equal quantity of matter & anti-matter is usually not ideal. In general having a small portion of anti-matter and a larger portion of matter is the best. The antimatter combined with an equal amount of matter will provide the energy to exhaust the rest of the matter. This indeed means that the total fuel mass becomes more, but it will not use up more energy, just more mass. The essential is, that mass is free, while energy is not. There is a delicate balance between the energy available, and the fuel that has to be carried with the starship. I've not found an easy way to explain it. I think the reason that it is so hard to explain this balance, is simply because we are lousy in doing differential equations by head. You can check out my page about it. The calculations have been there for quite a while now: http://www1.tip.nl/users/t596675/sd/calc/calc.html Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 13:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1648" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "16:50:45" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "53" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA17280 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 13:51:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout03.mail.aol.com (emout03.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.94]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA17224 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 13:51:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout03.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id QAA16538; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 16:50:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970730165037_412277890@emout03.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1647 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 16:50:45 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/28/97 2:47:59 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >>>The strech is provided by the beam and sail themselves. If the beam hits the >>>sail under an angle, it will push the sail aside. Just like a parachute will >>>be blown open and not flap or wrinkle in the middle. >>>The only places that may wrinkle are the outsides. >> >>That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. >> Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a domed >>shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). > >I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables... Anchored to what? Unless the anchor weighs enough it can't 'anchor' the sail. In the case of fuel/sail, the sail is 400 times heavier. >>>>You could fly a bunch of other sail ships around it. They could move in to >>>>'shadow' part of the larger main sail if needed. >>> >>>Doesn't sound good. Accelerating more than one sail is hard enough. >> >>One sails loss is anothyers gain. Remember the mini sails could be only a >>few miles across. Tiny compared to the monster sail. Their plenty of extra >>power in the beam beyond the sails edges. Hundreds of thousands of miles to >>cruse around in. > >True, but then the small sails should be able to accelerate faster than the >mothership. This is not necessary a problem, since they likely don't have as >much payload per sail-area. Not if they had the same cargo weight per sail area. >Hmmm, in theory they could stay a few light minutes behind us, and tell us >if the beam wiggles. They'll have to use FTL-communication of course ;) ;) >Tim Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 14:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1021" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "14:07:31" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "24" "starship-design: My two cents" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA22990 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:07:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id OAA22981 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:07:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA17398; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:07:30 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA24409; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:07:31 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707302107.OAA24409@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1020 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: My two cents Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:07:31 -0700 Steve and Timothy have had this argument before. I think the misunderstanding is stemming from what they mean by minimizing "Energy". If you try to minimize TOTAL ship-energy = Kinetic Energy + Rest Mass Energy then Steve is right; photons are best. If you try to minimize the Kinetic Energy you need (i.e. assume that mass is "free"), then Timothy is right: there is an optimum exhaust speed. So which is correct? That depends on the technology. If it's "easy" to turn mass into energy, then they're basically equivalent, and Steve is right. If it's very difficult to turn mass into energy, then rest mass is much easier to come by than the kinetic energy, so you try to minimize Kinetic Energy alone, and Timothy is right. So, as I understand it, right now Timothy is right about there being an "optimum" exhaust speed because it's tough to turn mass into energy. But given that antimatter might make this easy in the future, Steve's slant could very well be correct by the time we build the spaceship. Ken From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 14:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1981" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "14:10:28" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "38" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA06027 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:41:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA06015 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:41:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org ([198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA09671 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:10:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA19216; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:10:28 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707302110.OAA19216@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1980 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:10:28 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > I'm not sure what you mean with "things" but it simply is not true that > higher exhaust velocities are best. This is really very simple. v = p / E (p = momentum, E = total energy) m^2 = E^2 - p^2 (m = mass) If you start with with a quantity m of fuel at rest, it also has a total energy E. If you then react the fuel, you will have a smaller quantity of mass m1 of moving particles, but the same total energy E in the reaction products (simply, conservation of energy), and a consequent nonzero p. You will get the most zing for your starship if you maximize p -- the higher p is, the higher the resultant velocity of the starship when you burn a certain amount of fuel. For a given E, what's the highest p you can get? Simply enough, if you convert all the fuel into photons, then m = 0 and p = E. In any other case p < E and your ship is going slower given the same amount of fuel. Now, this isn't the same as Ken's analysis of slowing a ship down using beamed power going in the same direction as the ship and reaction mass. In order for the ship to slow down it has to eject reaction mass; if it doesn't lose mass it can't slow down, and the best it can do is stay at a constant speed by completely ignoring the beam. My analysis applies to self-fueled ships only, because the "box" in which the energy and momentum conservation apply contains only the ship and its fuel. The "box" for Ken's situation contains both a quantity of photons moving in the same direction as the ship, the ship itself, and the reaction mass it carries; the ship slows down by throwing reaction mass ahead of itself. Similarly, the Forward retrosail (using a reflecting sail sent out ahead of the ship to reflect beamed power back to the ship to slow it down) slows down the ship at the cost of accelerating the sail, and with rather painful ineffiency since the back-reflected photons get seriously redshifted as the forward reflector accelerates. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 14:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2107" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "14:44:08" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "40" "starship-design: My two cents" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA07147 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:44:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA07125 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:44:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA13633; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:43:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA19302; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:44:08 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707302144.OAA19302@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707302107.OAA24409@watt> References: <199707302107.OAA24409@watt> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2106 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: My two cents Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:44:08 -0700 Ken Wharton writes: > Steve and Timothy have had this argument before. I think the misunderstanding > is stemming from what they mean by minimizing "Energy". > > If you try to minimize TOTAL ship-energy = Kinetic Energy + Rest Mass Energy > then Steve is right; photons are best. > > If you try to minimize the Kinetic Energy you need (i.e. assume that mass is > "free"), then Timothy is right: there is an optimum exhaust speed. > > So which is correct? That depends on the technology. If it's "easy" to > turn mass into energy, then they're basically equivalent, and Steve is right. > > If it's very difficult to turn mass into energy, then rest mass is much > easier to come by than the kinetic energy, so you try to minimize Kinetic > Energy alone, and Timothy is right. > > So, as I understand it, right now Timothy is right about there being an > "optimum" exhaust speed because it's tough to turn mass into energy. But > given that antimatter might make this easy in the future, Steve's slant > could very well be correct by the time we build the spaceship. As far as I know my analysis is correct both for high-conversion and low-conversion cases; the nice thing about relativistic mechanics is that both total energy and momentum are completely conserved, unlike Newtonian mechanics where only momentum is conserved and kinetic energy is not. The final velocity of a self-contained starship, after burning its fuel, is a function of the total energy extracted from the fuel, the fuel-to-payload ratio, and the rate at which the fuel is burnt. Essentially, the derivations I did showed that you could maximize the final speed of the starship by any of converting more of the fuel to energy, having a higher fuel-to-payload ratio, or burning the fuel faster. On the other hand, for a manned spacecraft you do have important limits on the reaction rate of the fuel (required to keep the shipboard acceleration around 1 g or so), so you then either have to have a higher fuel-to-payload ratio or have a higher conversion efficiency for the fuel to reach a given speed. From owner-starship-design Wed Jul 30 15:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2425" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "15:29:00" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "50" "starship-design: further debate" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA25302 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 15:29:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id PAA25291 for ; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 15:29:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA18620; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 15:29:00 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA24788; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 15:29:00 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707302229.PAA24788@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2424 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: further debate Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 15:29:00 -0700 Steve, There IS a trade-off here. You are right that you can always get more momentum out of a given amount of mass/energy by converting as much of it to energy as possible. But you're automatically assuming we would WANT get the highest momentum/fuel mass ratio. Here's an example. We have an engine capable of coverting 100% of the fuel mass into pure energy (photons). But Timothy thinks it's optimal to not convert that much and decides to only convert a small percentage to pure energy, and use that percentage to kick out the rest of the fuel (at 0.1c, I think he derived). I'm not sure of the exact number, but I think this corresponds to converting only 1% of the fuel mass into energy, and using the other 99% as reaction mass. This, he says, is the optimum design. Not so! You respond. You can get more momentum per fuel mass if you convert it all to photons. (and you are correct). So you design a ship that beams only photons out the back, and you find it needs to carry less mass in fuel. Because you have a smaller mass ship, it also needs less thrust. Ah HA, you say: this is the true optimal design. But Timothy's point is that *The amount of fuel you save is less than a factor of 100* Why does that matter? Because your ship converts 100 times more fuel to energy than Timothy's ship; he only had to convert 1%, you convert 100%. And let's guess you can do it with twenty times less fuel; you still need 5 times as much ENERGY (this is Kinetic energy, that you MAKE onship) than Timothy did. Timothy has optimized his design to minimize *Kinetic Energy*, not total fuel mass. So although you've minimized the mass of the ship, you still need an engine that can handle 5 times the energy as Timothy's design. You need to beam five times the energy out the back. Timothy's point is that if you try to minimize the amount of Energy your onboard reactors need to produce (from your fuel), you don't want to use photons as reaction mass. Now, maybe one day antimatter will be so cheap that it won't matter, and maybe one day we won't care about how much energy we're processing, in which case we'll go your route. But as long as matter is at least five times cheaper than antimatter, Timothy's design has the lowest cost. And five times lower power-production requirements. As I said before, it's all a question of what you're trying to minimize. Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 06:38 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1856" "Wed" "30" "July" "1997" "19:58:05" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "35" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA29652 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 06:38:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA29635 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 06:37:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p19.gnt.com (x2p19.gnt.com [204.49.68.224]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA01471 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 08:37:58 -0500 Received: by x2p19.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BC9D8D.0AC714E0@x2p19.gnt.com>; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 08:37:55 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BC9D8D.0AC714E0@x2p19.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id GAA29640 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1855 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 19:58:05 -0500 Jim, >Sigh, I'm beginning not to like the sail concept as much. It is simple >and elegant, but between the deceleration problems, plus the difficulties >of such mega-structure operation, and the power beam generation problems, >I think the use of matter-antimatter and/or fusion ideas may be the >ultimate best way to go. The sail concept never has been a GREAT way to get there. It just offers the advantages of simplicity and efficiency. It is however, SLOW. At least it is if we are talking about relatively large manned missons. As a method for propelling light Starwisp type probes, it can get them up to relativistic velocities using only a few weeks worth of time from an orbital power array. For manned missions we will need something that can provide much higher thrust over longer periods of time. Since you just recently joined the group you may have gotten the impression that one or more of us are proponents of sails. Actually, I don't think any of us expect them to be used for manned missions although we do continue to explore the possibilities. There are too many things that can go wrong to depend upon a beam or fuel canisters from Earth for manned missions. The only thing left that we KNOW has sufficient thrust is antimatter, which we are far from sure we can generate and store in sufficient quantities. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "This double nature of radiation (and of material corpuscles) is a major property of reality, which has been interpreted by quantum-mechanics in an ingenious and amazingly successful fashion. This interpretation, which is looked upon as essentially final by almost all contemporary physicists, appears to me as only a temporary way out." Albert Einstein From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 06:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1275" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "15:53:38" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "52" "Re: starship-design: Fun with Math" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA02907 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 06:58:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA02897 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 06:58:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-028.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wtvl8-000JcBC; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:59:18 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1274 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Fun with Math Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:53:38 +0100 Ken, I've one question left: >So now your total delta P (for 100% efficiency) is > >P = E/c {(1+2A)^0.5 - 1} > >With a light -> particle efficiency, n (n<1) this becomes > >P = E/c {n(1+2A)^0.5 - 1} > >You lose stopping power by a factor of n, but the "pushing" power from the >beam is just as large! Solving for P/M, we plug in the earlier formula >for M, the E's cancel, and > >dP/dM = c {n(1+2A)^0.5 -1}/A Is dP/dM equal to P/M ? >>>Max Speed = 0.134c ln(Mo/Mf) >>> >>>So if you want to decelerate from .3c you need the sail to be 1.24 as >>>massive as the rest of the ship. (I didn't do this relativistically, so >>>any number higher than .3c is probably suspect) >> >>Shouldn't that be: you need the sail to be 0.24 as massive as the rest of >>the ship? (Ie. a zero instead of an one) >> >>Mo=Mship+Msail and Mship=Mf >> >>Mo=1.24*Mf --> Mf+Msail=1.24*Mf -> Msail=0.24*Mf > >Unfortunately, I already subtracted the 1; Mo = 2.24*Mf, Msail = 1.24*Mf. Oh wait a minute... Max Speed = 0.134c ln(Mo/Mf) 0.3c=0.134c ln(Mo/Mf) 2.24=ln(Mo/Mf) 9.38=Mo/Mf Mo=9.38Mf We both forgot the Logarithm! (did you lure me into that?) This really makes the mass-ratios dramatic for low efficiencies... (This also clarifies my doubts about the apparent low ratios.) Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 09:49 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["760" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "09:48:51" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "24" "starship-design: Yikes!" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA22821 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 09:49:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id JAA22781 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 09:48:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA26008; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 09:48:49 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA02904; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 09:48:51 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707311648.JAA02904@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 759 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Yikes! Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 09:48:51 -0700 >>dP/dM = c {n(1+2A)^0.5 -1}/A > >Is dP/dM equal to P/M ? Yes - Since E cancels you can make it as small as you want. And my P is really delta P; the change in momentum of the ship. >Mo=9.38Mf > >We both forgot the Logarithm! (did you lure me into that?) >This really makes the mass-ratios dramatic for low efficiencies... >(This also clarifies my doubts about the apparent low ratios.) Yes, that's my mistake. So now, for a 10% efficiency, you need a sail/ship\ ratio of 10^26!! Yikes and a half. Did someone say they could turn beamed power into electricity at a 90% or better conversion? So all we need is a way to turn electricity into a perfect beam with a 60% efficiency. Otherwise we'll have to sign off on this idea... Damn logarithm. Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 10:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["692" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "19:09:59" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA02005 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 10:15:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA01980 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 10:15:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-016.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wtyp7-000Jo7C; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 19:15:37 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 691 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 19:09:59 +0100 Steve, > > I'm not sure what you mean with "things" but it simply is not true that > > higher exhaust velocities are best. > >This is really very simple. No, it is not, otherwise you'd have acknowledged my approach. I'm starting to doubt if you've looked at what I did. I've seen your calculations over and over, and know they are right, but only if you care for a total energy (including restmass). We only care about normal energy (like the kind you store in a battery, which excludes restmass). The latter is what I minimized. Ken has done a good job in displaying our diffence of approach. I can't tell it more clear. I'd which you'd just tell me that I'm wrong or right. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 10:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1121" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "19:09:55" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "31" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA02191 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 10:16:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA02160 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 10:15:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-016.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wtyp3-000Jo6C; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 19:15:33 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1120 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 19:09:55 +0100 Kelly, >>>>The strech is provided by the beam and sail themselves. If the beam hits >>>>the sail under an angle, it will push the sail aside. Just like a parachute >>>>will be blown open and not flap or wrinkle in the middle. >>>>The only places that may wrinkle are the outsides. >>> >>>That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. >>> Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a domed >>>shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). >> >>I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables... > >Anchored to what? Unless the anchor weighs enough it can't 'anchor' the >sail. In the case of fuel/sail, the sail is 400 times heavier. Anchored to the ship. The ship doesn't need to be heavier, it just should want to accelerate less than the sail, which it does as soon as you cut the cables. >>True, but then the small sails should be able to accelerate faster than the >>mothership. This is not necessary a problem, since they likely don't have as >>much payload per sail-area. > >Not if they had the same cargo weight per sail area. ?? Didn't I just say that... Tim From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 10:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["996" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "19:09:57" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "24" "Re: starship-design: My two cents" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA02393 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 10:16:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA02376 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 10:16:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-016.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wtyp5-000JoeC; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 19:15:35 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 995 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: My two cents Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 19:09:57 +0100 Ken writes: >Steve and Timothy have had this argument before. I think the misunderstanding >is stemming from what they mean by minimizing "Energy". I guess you are right with your analysis about us. (However, I think Steve knew what I meant with energy. As far as I know Steve never mentioned minimizing energy. (I used to call his approach minimizing mass)) >So, as I understand it, right now Timothy is right about there being an >"optimum" exhaust speed because it's tough to turn mass into energy. But >given that antimatter might make this easy in the future, Steve's slant >could very well be correct by the time we build the spaceship. Turning mass into energy by using anti-matter is indeed easy. Even if making anti-matter becomes easy (do you mean efficient?) then you still need the energy to make it (which still is an awful lot). Anyhow, if (useful) energy becomes "free", then no one needs to bother about an efficient design. Just use the design that is easiest. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1024" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "13:00:34" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "28" "starship-design: Collision sails and various things" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA12778 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:00:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA12744 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:00:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-77.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-77.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.77]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA09964 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:00:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33E0EEE2.7137@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1023 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Collision sails and various things Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:00:34 -0700 Greetings: I know I'll be ridiculed but: We need some serious thought into alternative propulsion ideas. These designs are great, but require so much fuel/energy to run, that they defeat the purpose. I have some ideas created by myself and NASA below: 1. collision sails: To ride QZPF/such as a sail would ride a laser beam 2. transmission sails: To absorb, concentrate, and reemit QZPF/such 3. Field drives: To alter space in a way providing propulsive force (falling into your gravity well, etc.) 4. EM drives: distort gravity via electromagnetism. (ZPF is an electromagnetic phenomena). 5. ????ideas anyone???? These were not forbidden by the charter. Look at how far we've come since 1947! If anyone misunderstands, that date is only provided as a 50 year ago reference, not the roswell incident time. We need to do some work on these. If NASA did, we might as well. Kyle Mcallister "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." - Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics (1923) From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1596" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "12:06:44" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "50" "starship-design: Collision sails and various things" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA15870 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:07:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA15857 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:07:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA13656; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:06:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA22342; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:06:44 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707311906.MAA22342@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33E0EEE2.7137@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33E0EEE2.7137@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1595 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Collision sails and various things Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:06:44 -0700 kyle writes: > Greetings: > > I know I'll be ridiculed but: > > We need some serious thought into alternative propulsion ideas. These > designs are great, but require so much fuel/energy to run, that they > defeat the purpose. I have some ideas created by myself and NASA below: > > 1. collision sails: To ride QZPF/such as a sail would ride a laser beam Huh? > 2. transmission sails: To absorb, concentrate, and reemit QZPF/such Huh? > 3. Field drives: To alter space in a way providing propulsive force > (falling into your gravity well, etc.) Huh? > 4. EM drives: distort gravity via electromagnetism. (ZPF is an > electromagnetic phenomena). Gravity is not an electromagneetic phenomenon, so far as anyone understands it currently. > 5. ????ideas anyone???? I'm willing to consider new ideas, but let's not rehash all these speculative ideas that we seem to agree are just too new and unproven to be useful in an engineering context. > These were not forbidden by the charter. Look at how far we've come > since 1947! If anyone misunderstands, that date is only provided as a 50 > year ago reference, not the roswell incident time. > > We need to do some work on these. If NASA did, we might as well. All the NASA work I've seen on these basically says that none of them are useful for spacecraft engineering at this time, even the ones that aren't in violent contradiction with known physics. > Kyle Mcallister > > "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." > - Robert Millikan, > Nobel Prize in Physics (1923) From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:31 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2404" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "13:31:22" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "71" "Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA25598 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:31:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA25576 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:31:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-77.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-86.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.86]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA06437 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:31:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33E0F619.284C@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33E0EEE2.7137@sunherald.infi.net> <199707311906.MAA22342@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2403 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:31:22 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > kyle writes: > > Greetings: > > > > I know I'll be ridiculed but: > > > > We need some serious thought into alternative propulsion ideas. These > > designs are great, but require so much fuel/energy to run, that they > > defeat the purpose. I have some ideas created by myself and NASA below: > > > > 1. collision sails: To ride QZPF/such as a sail would ride a laser beam > > Huh? QZPF: Quantum Zero Point Fluctuations > > > 2. transmission sails: To absorb, concentrate, and reemit QZPF/such > > Huh? > > > 3. Field drives: To alter space in a way providing propulsive force > > (falling into your gravity well, etc.) > > Huh? Like rolling a barrel down a valley, but continually creating the valley in front of your ship. Doesn't need negative matter! (a good thing) > > > 4. EM drives: distort gravity via electromagnetism. (ZPF is an > > electromagnetic phenomena). > > Gravity is not an electromagneetic phenomenon, so far as anyone > understands it currently. Not Gravity, ZPF. ZPF is affected by electromagnetism, and gravity in turn by ZPF. Gravity can't be directly altered by magnetism. (at least we don't think it can). > > > 5. ????ideas anyone???? > > I'm willing to consider new ideas, but let's not rehash all these > speculative ideas that we seem to agree are just too new and unproven to > be useful in an engineering context. But we can at least consider them, and create basic ideas of them. If we don't, we'll probably stay stuck on matter/energy problems forever. Besides, if we don't work on such ideas, they will never come to pass. > > > These were not forbidden by the charter. Look at how far we've come > > since 1947! If anyone misunderstands, that date is only provided as a 50 > > year ago reference, not the roswell incident time. > > > > We need to do some work on these. If NASA did, we might as well. > > All the NASA work I've seen on these basically says that none of them > are useful for spacecraft engineering at this time, even the ones that > aren't in violent contradiction with known physics. I generally agree, but still say we should work on them. > > > Kyle Mcallister > > > > "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." > > - Robert Millikan, > > Nobel Prize in Physics (1923) From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["217" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "13:34:39" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "8" "starship-design: Gravity control is near" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA26437 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:34:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA26381 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:34:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-77.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-86.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.86]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA30879 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:34:49 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33E0F6DE.4AD0@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 216 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Gravity control is near Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:34:39 -0700 Greetings. Tampere university has built a gravity shield that reduces gravitation on objects near it. Another device similar to this is being built in the US. Interesting, and useful for SSD, don't you think? Kyle From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1500" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "21:30:50" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "38" "Re: starship-design: Yikes!" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA26953 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:36:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA26897 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:36:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-017.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wu11Q-000Jx4C; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 21:36:28 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1499 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Yikes! Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 21:30:50 +0100 To Ken and others: >>We both forgot the Logarithm! (did you lure me into that?) >>This really makes the mass-ratios dramatic for low efficiencies... >>(This also clarifies my doubts about the apparent low ratios.) > >Yes, that's my mistake. So now, for a 10% efficiency, you need a sail/ship\ >ratio of 10^26!! Yikes and a half. Did someone say they could turn beamed >power into electricity at a 90% or better conversion? So all we need is a >way to turn electricity into a perfect beam with a 60% efficiency. Otherwise >we'll have to sign off on this idea... Electricity is not something you want if you're talking about 1E19 Watt in such a small area, the magnetic field alone would crumple the ship and sail (a wild guess). Furthermore, efficiencies less that 99% are not what we can handle if our radiative area is too small (smaller than 100 square kilometers for losses of 1E15 Watt). When we talk about an engine, we usually like to have it rather small, however it is likely that this is not possible. There's a big chance that we need many small engines or one huge engine. Actually a mirror is the best engine, it has a large radiative surface and a high efficiency. Of course we are ignoring the beamingstation which now has to cope with all the trouble. Luckely the beaming station can be bulky without needing exponentially more energy. This, may actually be a reason to forget any engine and to only think about sail designs. >Damn logarithm. Damn physics... ;) Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:38 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1837" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "12:37:47" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "43" "Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA27764 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:38:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA27703 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:38:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA17271; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:37:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA22421; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:37:47 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707311937.MAA22421@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33E0F619.284C@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33E0EEE2.7137@sunherald.infi.net> <199707311906.MAA22342@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33E0F619.284C@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1836 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:37:47 -0700 kyle writes: > > > 3. Field drives: To alter space in a way providing propulsive force > > > (falling into your gravity well, etc.) > > > > Huh? > > Like rolling a barrel down a valley, but continually creating the valley > in front of your ship. Doesn't need negative matter! (a good thing) Violates several conservation laws and is pretty close in concept to the perpetual motion machine. A bad thing. > > > 4. EM drives: distort gravity via electromagnetism. (ZPF is an > > > electromagnetic phenomena). > > > > Gravity is not an electromagneetic phenomenon, so far as anyone > > understands it currently. > > Not Gravity, ZPF. ZPF is affected by electromagnetism, and gravity in > turn by ZPF. Gravity can't be directly altered by magnetism. (at least > we don't think it can). There is some interesting speculation on inertia being an interaction with the vacuum, but it is untested and there are no obvious applications that were presented along with the speculation. > > > 5. ????ideas anyone???? > > > > I'm willing to consider new ideas, but let's not rehash all these > > speculative ideas that we seem to agree are just too new and unproven to > > be useful in an engineering context. > > But we can at least consider them, and create basic ideas of them. If we > don't, we'll probably stay stuck on matter/energy problems forever. > Besides, if we don't work on such ideas, they will never come to pass. Then I suggest that this is not the forum for working on them. I see this as an engineering forum, not a speculative science forum. We work on matter/energy problems because they are fundamental to interstellar propulsion, and I expect them to remain so. Even the speculative ideas will likely involve energy and fueling problems, should they pass from speculation to fact. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["481" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "12:40:54" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "16" "starship-design: Gravity control is near" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA29824 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:41:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA29807 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:41:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA17561; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:40:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA22432; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:40:54 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707311940.MAA22432@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33E0F6DE.4AD0@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33E0F6DE.4AD0@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 480 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: kyle Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Gravity control is near Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:40:54 -0700 kyle writes: > Greetings. > > Tampere university has built a gravity shield that reduces gravitation > on objects near it. Another device similar to this is being built in the > US. Interesting, and useful for SSD, don't you think? > > Kyle What little I've seen on this is that it's panning out about as well as cold fusion. Other investigators are not successfully duplicating the results. Kyle, I still maintain that this is not a speculative physics mailing list. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2171" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "13:52:30" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "52" "Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA04640 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:52:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA04589 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:52:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-77.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-92.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.92]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA17053 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:52:39 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33E0FB0D.1429@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33E0EEE2.7137@sunherald.infi.net> <199707311906.MAA22342@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33E0F619.284C@sunherald.infi.net> <199707311937.MAA22421@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2170 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:52:30 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > kyle writes: > > > > 3. Field drives: To alter space in a way providing propulsive force > > > > (falling into your gravity well, etc.) > > > > > > Huh? > > > > Like rolling a barrel down a valley, but continually creating the valley > > in front of your ship. Doesn't need negative matter! (a good thing) > > Violates several conservation laws and is pretty close in concept to the > perpetual motion machine. A bad thing. It needs energy to create this distortion. If that violates conservation, then the electric motor industry is in big trouble... > > > > > 4. EM drives: distort gravity via electromagnetism. (ZPF is an > > > > electromagnetic phenomena). > > > > > > Gravity is not an electromagneetic phenomenon, so far as anyone > > > understands it currently. > > > > Not Gravity, ZPF. ZPF is affected by electromagnetism, and gravity in > > turn by ZPF. Gravity can't be directly altered by magnetism. (at least > > we don't think it can). > > There is some interesting speculation on inertia being an interaction > with the vacuum, but it is untested and there are no obvious > applications that were presented along with the speculation. > > > > > 5. ????ideas anyone???? > > > > > > I'm willing to consider new ideas, but let's not rehash all these > > > speculative ideas that we seem to agree are just too new and unproven to > > > be useful in an engineering context. > > > > But we can at least consider them, and create basic ideas of them. If we > > don't, we'll probably stay stuck on matter/energy problems forever. > > Besides, if we don't work on such ideas, they will never come to pass. > > Then I suggest that this is not the forum for working on them. I see > this as an engineering forum, not a speculative science forum. We work > on matter/energy problems because they are fundamental to interstellar > propulsion, and I expect them to remain so. Even the speculative ideas > will likely involve energy and fueling problems, should they pass from > speculation to fact. Where do you suggest I go? There are no places to discuss that. If no one does, we'll never know. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 12:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["648" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "13:54:20" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "21" "Re: starship-design: Gravity control is near" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA05224 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:54:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA05155 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:54:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-77.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-92.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.92]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA28003 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:54:30 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33E0FB7C.4CE4@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33E0F6DE.4AD0@sunherald.infi.net> <199707311940.MAA22432@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 647 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Gravity control is near Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:54:20 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > kyle writes: > > Greetings. > > > > Tampere university has built a gravity shield that reduces gravitation > > on objects near it. Another device similar to this is being built in the > > US. Interesting, and useful for SSD, don't you think? > > > > Kyle > > What little I've seen on this is that it's panning out about as well as > cold fusion. Other investigators are not successfully duplicating the > results. > > Kyle, I still maintain that this is not a speculative physics mailing > list. And I still maintain that there are NO mailing list trying to seriously pursue this. It's time there was one. From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 13:09 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2039" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "13:09:51" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "41" "starship-design: Zero-Point Momentum" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA11146 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:09:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id NAA11125 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:09:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA29262; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:09:50 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA04663; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:09:51 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707312009.NAA04663@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2038 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Zero-Point Momentum Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:09:51 -0700 Kyle, I agree that future spaceship designs may work by extracting energy from the vacuum and using that energy to shoot reaction mass out of the ship. Momentum is conserved, and we seem to violating conservation of energy, but that's okay because there's zero-point energy we're tapping. However, these proposals of yours (#1, #2, and #3) seem to imply that we can violate conservation of momentum as well, by pulling momentum out of the ZPE?? Remember, as far as the ZPE theory does, there is no zero- point momentum. If you extract momentum from vacuum, does that mean you accelerate space in the opposite direction? This is highly speculative (orders of magnitude more so than ZPE, to use a comparison). If we can tap the ZPE it's much more likely we'll do it on a energy, rather than a momentum basis. Well, okay, so maybe I've written an entire science fiction novel based on space-time inertia, but that doesn't mean I believe it... >> All the NASA work I've seen on these basically says that none of them >> are useful for spacecraft engineering at this time, even the ones that >> aren't in violent contradiction with known physics. > >I generally agree, but still say we should work on them. Again, this group CAN'T work on them. If you have the resources to do so, we'll be more than happy to take your experimental results into account. But what these ideas are really going to need is a better understanding of the fundamental physics, and although anyone can come up with a theory, I think the only ones that this group can (in good conscience) take into account are ones that are plausible enough to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific Journal. (In which some rather far-out ideas are regularly voiced, believe it or not...) I sincerely hope you will work toward a degree in physics and publicly contribute to this ever-evolving field. I have no doubt that it will be someone like you who makes the next major breakthrough in our fundamental understanding of the universe. Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 13:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1102" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "13:17:48" "-0700" "Kevin C Houston" "hous0042@garnet.tc.umn.edu" nil "25" "BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ]" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA14392 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:17:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA14376; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:17:48 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199707312017.NAA14376@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199707312015.NAA13739@darkwing.uoregon.edu> References: <199707312015.NAA13739@darkwing.uoregon.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Kevin C Houston Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1101 From: Kevin C Houston Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from [Kevin C Houston ] Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:17:48 -0700 (PDT) > Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) > by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id NAA13716 > for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:15:21 -0700 (PDT) > Received: from garnet.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Thu, 31 Jul 97 15:15:22 -0500 > Received: from localhost by garnet.tc.umn.edu; Thu, 31 Jul 97 15:15:22 -0500 > Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:15:21 -0500 (CDT) > From: Kevin C Houston > To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" > Subject: Radio program announcement > Message-ID: > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > > on Friday, at 1:00pm (Central time), National Public Radio (NPR) will be > having a show on FTL communication via quantum mechanics. There is also a > web site: > http://www.npr.org/yourturn/ > > this site requires you to pre-register, so you might want to take care of > that before the show if you want to participate on-line. > > > Kevin From owner-starship-design Thu Jul 31 13:25 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2368" "Thu" "31" "July" "1997" "14:25:15" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "51" "Re: starship-design: Zero-Point Momentum" "^From:" nil nil "7" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA17653 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:25:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA17565 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:25:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-77.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-100.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.100]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA01477 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 16:25:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33E102BB.2E0F@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199707312009.NAA04663@watt> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2367 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Zero-Point Momentum Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 14:25:15 -0700 Ken Wharton wrote: > > Kyle, > > I agree that future spaceship designs may work by extracting energy from > the vacuum and using that energy to shoot reaction mass out of the ship. > Momentum is conserved, and we seem to violating conservation of energy, > but that's okay because there's zero-point energy we're tapping. > > However, these proposals of yours (#1, #2, and #3) seem to imply that we > can violate conservation of momentum as well, by pulling momentum out of > the ZPE?? Remember, as far as the ZPE theory does, there is no zero- > point momentum. If you extract momentum from vacuum, does that mean you > accelerate space in the opposite direction? This is highly speculative > (orders of magnitude more so than ZPE, to use a comparison). If we can > tap the ZPE it's much more likely we'll do it on a energy, rather than a > momentum basis. I can't take credit for 1 2 and 3. They were NASA's ideas. > > Well, okay, so maybe I've written an entire science fiction novel based > on space-time inertia, but that doesn't mean I believe it... > > >> All the NASA work I've seen on these basically says that none of them > >> are useful for spacecraft engineering at this time, even the ones that > >> aren't in violent contradiction with known physics. > > > >I generally agree, but still say we should work on them. > > Again, this group CAN'T work on them. If you have the resources to do > so, we'll be more than happy to take your experimental results into > account. But what these ideas are really going to need is a better > understanding of the fundamental physics, and although anyone can come up > with a theory, I think the only ones that this group can (in good > conscience) take into account are ones that are plausible enough to be > published in a peer-reviewed scientific Journal. (In which some rather > far-out ideas are regularly voiced, believe it or not...) They actually were published in a NASA journal, and so was Alcubierre's theory. If no one here will speculate on this, can you tell me where I can find a group that will? > I sincerely hope you will work toward a degree in physics and publicly contribute to > this ever-evolving field. I have no doubt that it will be someone like > you who makes the next major breakthrough in our fundamental > understanding of the universe. Thank You Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 1 09:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["176" "Fri" "1" "August" "1997" "10:17:08" "-0700" "kyle" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "6" "starship-design: Comet-fueled starships" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA13890 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 1 Aug 1997 09:17:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA13855 for ; Fri, 1 Aug 1997 09:17:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.83]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA04550 for ; Fri, 1 Aug 1997 12:17:24 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33E21A12.4D25@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: InfiNet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kyle Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 175 From: kyle Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Comet-fueled starships Date: Fri, 01 Aug 1997 10:17:08 -0700 Doesn't appear that my idea was met with much interest. I wonder why almost none of my ideas, even the conventional ones, are? Perhaps since I am an amateur? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 1 11:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["816" "Fri" "1" "August" "1997" "20:43:19" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "23" "starship-design: Where to go?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA11786 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 1 Aug 1997 11:48:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA11751 for ; Fri, 1 Aug 1997 11:48:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-001.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wuMkz-000K47C; Fri, 1 Aug 1997 20:48:57 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 815 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Where to go? Date: Fri, 01 Aug 1997 20:43:19 +0100 Kyle wonders >> Then I suggest that this is not the forum for working on them. I see >> this as an engineering forum, not a speculative science forum. We work >> on matter/energy problems because they are fundamental to interstellar >> propulsion, and I expect them to remain so. Even the speculative ideas >> will likely involve energy and fueling problems, should they pass from >> speculation to fact. > >Where do you suggest I go? There are no places to discuss that. If no >one does, we'll never know. I've told you before that freenerg-l may be an excellent list for you. Sent a mail to freenrg-L-request@eskimo.com and put the word subscribe in the subject line. They know about how to build ZPE-devices and alike, but don't expect them to have the general physics knowledge available here. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 12:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1866" "Sun" "3" "August" "1997" "15:10:43" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "49" "Re: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23444 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout10.mail.aol.com (emout10.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.25]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA23430 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout10.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA29043; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:43 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970803151042_650179433@emout10.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1865 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:43 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/31/97 7:53:39 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Jim, > >>Sigh, I'm beginning not to like the sail concept as much. It is simple >>and elegant, but between the deceleration problems, plus the difficulties >>of such mega-structure operation, and the power beam generation problems, >>I think the use of matter-antimatter and/or fusion ideas may be the >>ultimate best way to go. > >The sail concept never has been a GREAT way to get there. It just offers >the advantages of simplicity and efficiency. It is however, SLOW. At >least it is if we are talking about relatively large manned missons. As >a method for propelling light Starwisp type probes, it can get them up >to relativistic velocities using only a few weeks worth of time from an >orbital power array. > >For manned missions we will need something that can provide much higher >thrust over longer periods of time. Since you just recently joined the >group you may have gotten the impression that one or more of us are proponent s >of sails. Actually, I don't think any of us expect them to be used for manned missions >although we do continue to explore the possibilities. > >There are too many things that can go wrong to depend upon a beam or fuel canisters >from Earth for manned missions. The only thing left that we KNOW has sufficient >thrust is antimatter, which we are far from sure we can generate and store in sufficient >quantities. > > >Lee Parker One correction. I am a advacate of a hybrid microwave acceleration sail/ fussion deceleration system (Fuel/Sail). It offers fairly high speed (.42c ish) and full two way flights. For routine (?!) interstellar travel between colonized starsystems a pure microwave sail design works, but by then would be obsolete. Given our curent understanding of physics, that about the best we can do. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 12:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1564" "Sun" "3" "August" "1997" "15:10:45" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "40" "Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23458 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout11.mail.aol.com (emout11.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.26]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA23440 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout11.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA03075; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970803151045_-488004887@emout11.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1563 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:45 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/31/97 6:49:58 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >Greetings: > >I know I'll be ridiculed but: > >We need some serious thought into alternative propulsion ideas. These >designs are great, but require so much fuel/energy to run, that they >defeat the purpose. I have some ideas created by myself and NASA below: > >1. collision sails: To ride QZPF/such as a sail would ride a laser beam >2. transmission sails: To absorb, concentrate, and reemit QZPF/such >3. Field drives: To alter space in a way providing propulsive force >(falling into your gravity well, etc.) >4. EM drives: distort gravity via electromagnetism. (ZPF is an >electromagnetic phenomena). >5. ????ideas anyone???? > >These were not forbidden by the charter. Look at how far we've come >since 1947! If anyone misunderstands, that date is only provided as a 50 >year ago reference, not the roswell incident time. > >We need to do some work on these. If NASA did, we might as well. > >Kyle Mcallister The concepts you listed, and several others NASA is looking at (inertia damping is a nice one) would dramatically cut the difficulty of interstellar travel. But they are VERY speculative. Noone knows if any of them could work. Much less how to use them. On the other hand the designs were coming up with are fairly buildable. Require little new technology (thou a lot of new development of that tech). But need huge power sources. That could eaither be handeled by a very rich society, advaces in mass production, or new concepts in power production.. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 12:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2830" "Sun" "3" "August" "1997" "15:10:49" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "69" "Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23486 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA23473 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA21415; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:49 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970803151048_2094572917@emout12.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2829 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stevev@efn.org, owner-starship-design@darkwing.uoregon.edu, stk@sunherald.infi.net cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:49 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/1/97 3:26:28 AM, stevev@efn.org (Steve VanDevender) wrote: >kyle writes: > > > > 3. Field drives: To alter space in a way providing propulsive force > > > > (falling into your gravity well, etc.) > > > > > > Huh? > > > > Like rolling a barrel down a valley, but continually creating the valley > > in front of your ship. Doesn't need negative matter! (a good thing) > >Violates several conservation laws and is pretty close in concept to the >perpetual motion machine. A bad thing. Actually not. (Oh and their are other types of field drives.) If you are projecting a gravity field ahead of you and falling into it. You still have to keep generating that gravity field ahead of the ship. That might be so power consumptive that it far out consumes our ideas. Or you might be able to generate gravity distortions easily using some unknown interaction between gravity/EM/ZPE/whatever. > > > > 4. EM drives: distort gravity via electromagnetism. (ZPF is an > > > > electromagnetic phenomena). > > > > > > Gravity is not an electromagneetic phenomenon, so far as anyone > > > understands it currently. > > > > Not Gravity, ZPF. ZPF is affected by electromagnetism, and gravity in > > turn by ZPF. Gravity can't be directly altered by magnetism. (at least > > we don't think it can). > >There is some interesting speculation on inertia being an interaction >with the vacuum, but it is untested and there are no obvious >applications that were presented along with the speculation. I did hear some speculation about using interactions with EM and inertia interactions to cancel out inertia effects. I.E. allowing you to accelerate a ship with far less thrust then normal. That could allow fantastic speeds with little power. Assuming of course the damping effect doesn't consume more power then normal acceleration thrustion would, and of course asuming this isn't all bull. > > > > 5. ????ideas anyone???? > > > > > > I'm willing to consider new ideas, but let's not rehash all these > > > speculative ideas that we seem to agree are just too new and unproven to > > > be useful in an engineering context. > > > > But we can at least consider them, and create basic ideas of them. If we > > don't, we'll probably stay stuck on matter/energy problems forever. > > Besides, if we don't work on such ideas, they will never come to pass. > >Then I suggest that this is not the forum for working on them. I see >this as an engineering forum, not a speculative science forum. We work >on matter/energy problems because they are fundamental to interstellar >propulsion, and I expect them to remain so. Even the speculative ideas >will likely involve energy and fueling problems, should they pass from >speculation to fact. True. Neat ideas, but to speculative to doi much with. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 12:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["553" "Sun" "3" "August" "1997" "15:10:54" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "16" "Re: starship-design: Comet-fueled starships" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23525 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout14.mail.aol.com (emout14.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA23502 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout14.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA15983; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970803151053_1813339351@emout14.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 552 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Comet-fueled starships Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:54 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/1/97 4:09:06 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >Doesn't appear that my idea was met with much interest. I wonder why >almost none of my ideas, even the conventional ones, are? Perhaps since >I am an amateur? > >Kyle Mcallister More likely your ideas tend toward the very speculative (QZPE, space/time distortion, etc) that can't be done much with, or technically vague. For example. Why use comets? Comets are largely composed of volital gases, water, oil, and rock. None of which has much use for a starship. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 12:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1272" "Sun" "3" "August" "1997" "15:10:57" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "36" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23552 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout17.mail.aol.com (emout17.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.43]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA23527 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout17.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA25267; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970803151057_278706519@emout17.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1271 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:10:57 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/30/97 7:47:03 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Jim wrote > >>Sigh, I'm beginning not to like the sail concept as much. It is simple >>and elegant, but between the deceleration problems, plus the difficulties >>of such mega-structure operation, and the power beam generation problems, >>I think the use of matter-antimatter and/or fusion ideas may be the >>ultimate best way to go. > >Glad you realize that. (Actually that was my motivation for making that >summary about beaming ;) > >However as long as anti-matter can't be made much more efficient than >transmission & transform efficiencies for beaming then it isn't likely to be >used. > >Timothy Anti-mater offers lots of power, but is virtually unusable due to its incredable cost and difficulty in storing large quantities (thousands of tons, at least!) for years to decades, and the difficulty inrefuling the ship for the return flight. A pure fusion ship is still to heavy (a 160,000 to one fuel ration for a explo rer class) unless you use some tricks (like Explorers laser fuel launchers, or fuel/Sail) to offset the boost fuel problem. Until some new physics tric is found, thats about all we have. Do-able, but groesly inefficent and costly. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 12:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["485" "Sun" "3" "August" "1997" "15:11:04" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "19" "Re: starship-design: Gravity control is near" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23588 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA23572 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA10214; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:11:04 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970803151102_259843817@emout19.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 484 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Gravity control is near Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:11:04 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/1/97 3:24:44 AM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >Greetings. > >Tampere university has built a gravity shield that reduces gravitation >on objects near it. Another device similar to this is being built in the >US. Interesting, and useful for SSD, don't you think? > >Kyle This is being strongly debated. Some reprts flatly state that its has been disproven. Actually it wouldn't help SSD much since the ship wouldn't need to worry about gravity. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 12:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1461" "Sun" "3" "August" "1997" "15:11:06" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23610 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA23589 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA07118; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:11:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970803151105_-1407236265@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1460 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:11:06 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/31/97 8:42:55 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >>>>>The strech is provided by the beam and sail themselves. If the beam hits >>>>>the sail under an angle, it will push the sail aside. Just like a parachute >>>>>will be blown open and not flap or wrinkle in the middle. >>>>>The only places that may wrinkle are the outsides. >>>> >>>>That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. >>>> Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a domed >>>>shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). >>> >>>I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables... >> >>Anchored to what? Unless the anchor weighs enough it can't 'anchor' the >>sail. In the case of fuel/sail, the sail is 400 times heavier. > >Anchored to the ship. The ship doesn't need to be heavier, it just should >want to accelerate less than the sail, which it does as soon as you cut the >cables. But the ship is (in my Fuel/Sail idea) 1/400th the weight of the sail. So the ships weight is probably not enough to stablize the sail. >>>True, but then the small sails should be able to accelerate faster than the >>>mothership. This is not necessary a problem, since they likely don't have as >>>much payload per sail-area. >> >>Not if they had the same cargo weight per sail area. > >?? Didn't I just say that... Err...true. Sorry. Been out of it lately. Worried about the dog. >Tim Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 12:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3368" "Sun" "3" "August" "1997" "15:11:12" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "78" "Re: starship-design: Zero-Point Momentum" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id MAA23639 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout02.mail.aol.com (emout02.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.93]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA23625 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 12:11:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout02.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA16626; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:11:12 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970803151110_2027471733@emout02.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3367 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Zero-Point Momentum Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:11:12 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 7/31/97 8:09:30 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote: >Ken Wharton wrote: >> >> Kyle, >> >> I agree that future spaceship designs may work by extracting energy from >> the vacuum and using that energy to shoot reaction mass out of the ship. >> Momentum is conserved, and we seem to violating conservation of energy, >> but that's okay because there's zero-point energy we're tapping. >> >> However, these proposals of yours (#1, #2, and #3) seem to imply that we >> can violate conservation of momentum as well, by pulling momentum out of >> the ZPE?? Remember, as far as the ZPE theory does, there is no zero- >> point momentum. If you extract momentum from vacuum, does that mean you >> accelerate space in the opposite direction? This is highly speculative >> (orders of magnitude more so than ZPE, to use a comparison). If we can >> tap the ZPE it's much more likely we'll do it on a energy, rather than a >> momentum basis. > >I can't take credit for 1 2 and 3. They were NASA's ideas. Actually none of them are NASA ideas. They are theries NASA wants to get someone else to research. You might for example be able to cancel out innertia, side step the concervation of mementum laws (hey we did it with the concervation of mass and energy laws), and lots of other highly usefull future phisics trick. But we don't know if any of that is possible, much less practical. Doing these trickcs could make our little power and cost problems look laughable in contrast. >> Well, okay, so maybe I've written an entire science fiction novel based >> on space-time inertia, but that doesn't mean I believe it... Which one? >> >> All the NASA work I've seen on these basically says that none of them >> >> are useful for spacecraft engineering at this time, even the ones that >> >> aren't in violent contradiction with known physics. >> > >> >I generally agree, but still say we should work on them. >> >> Again, this group CAN'T work on them. If you have the resources to do >> so, we'll be more than happy to take your experimental results into >> account. But what these ideas are really going to need is a better >> understanding of the fundamental physics, and although anyone can come up >> with a theory, I think the only ones that this group can (in good >> conscience) take into account are ones that are plausible enough to be >> published in a peer-reviewed scientific Journal. (In which some rather >> far-out ideas are regularly voiced, believe it or not...) > >They actually were published in a NASA journal, and so was Alcubierre's >theory. If no one here will speculate on this, can you tell me where I >can find a group that will? They were publish as speculations in NASA and space related publications. Buyt we havent a clue on how or if they would work. >> I sincerely hope you will work toward a degree in physics and publicly contribute >to >> this ever-evolving field. I have no doubt that it will be someone like >> you who makes the next major breakthrough in our fundamental >> understanding of the universe. Agreed, and when you make the breakthrough (and I've no doubt someone will) then we can speculate on how those breakthrough can be integrated into a functioning system. Until then we can talk about how neat it would be (and do) but not much more. >Thank You > >Kyle Mcallister Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 3 15:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1098" "Mon" "4" "August" "1997" "00:18:18" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "28" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id PAA07630 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:23:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA07608 for ; Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:23:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-025.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wv94A-000EqoC; Mon, 4 Aug 1997 00:23:58 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1097 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Mon, 04 Aug 1997 00:18:18 +0100 Kelly wrote: >>>>>That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. >>>>> Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a domed >>>>>shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). >>>> >>>>I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables... >>> >>>Anchored to what? Unless the anchor weighs enough it can't 'anchor' the >>>sail. In the case of fuel/sail, the sail is 400 times heavier. >> >>Anchored to the ship. The ship doesn't need to be heavier, it just should >>want to accelerate less than the sail, which it does as soon as you cut the >>cables. > >But the ship is (in my Fuel/Sail idea) 1/400th the weight of the sail. So >the ship's weight is probably not enough to stablize the sail. The weight difference only modifies the speed at which changes can be made. Indeed of the imbalances in the sail occur faster than then they can be corrected, then we are in trouble. But thinking about this, why did you want to make the sail so heavy? Why not just put all that fuel in tank sattached to the ship and make the sail as light as possible? Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 4 20:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2896" "Mon" "4" "August" "1997" "23:41:10" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "68" "starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA12835 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 4 Aug 1997 20:41:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout06.mail.aol.com (emout06.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.97]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA12821 for ; Mon, 4 Aug 1997 20:41:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout06.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA19776; Mon, 4 Aug 1997 23:41:10 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970804234104_164414753@emout06.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2895 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 23:41:10 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/4/97 12:49:39 PM, you wrote: >I'm not sure if you're the appropriate person to e-mail this to, but >I was just browsing the following web page: > >http://sunsite.unc.edu/lunar/school/InterStellar/Explorer_Class/External_fuel ed_Drive.html > >This web page noted: > >>Decelerating into the target star system. > >>Now for the bad news - you have to slow down. We can't pre-load >>a deceleration course track into the target star with fuel across >>interstellar distances. ... > >This simply is not true! It is indeed possible to pre-load a >deceleration course track. The trick is that this deceleration >course track is travelling at relativistic velocities, catching >up with the starship. > >The basic idea is to launch a bunch of fuel packets after the >starship has launched at relativistic speeds. IMO, the best >launch method would be RPB propulsion. These packets travel >faster than the starship to catch up with it when it reaches >the destination system. > >The big advantages this scheme has are: > >1. The starship's initial launch mass is minimized (obviously). >2. The fuel packets may be launched over a period of years, and > yet arrive at the destination over a period of weeks by > progressively launching faster and faster packets. This > minimizes the power needed of the particle beams. (Compare > to the dubious concept of transmitting a laser or microwave > beam over interstellar distances.) >3. The deceleration phase is almost identical to the acceleration > phase (from the perspective of the starship), so the same > ramjet/scoops/whatever can be used. This can simplify the design. > >Anyway, I haven't seen this idea floated around before, but I know >someone must have thought of this before me. It's just too simple >and elegant a concept! >-- > _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo I'm a good one to mail too. I also forwarded your comments to the main group masil list. A couple problems. One your talking about firing pellets to within a few hundred miles at a distence of light years. Given any drift due to interstellar megnetic fields (which we know little about) or loss of charge due to interaction with the interstellar medium, etc.. And your fuel will wind up scatted all over the star system. Secound. To avoid the deta-v gain from scooping up fuel thats going faster then you (your are trying to slow down) the fuel has to be at a relativly slow velocity. (Ideally slightly slower than you at all points of the deceleration.) But if it was that slow, it would have to be launched decades to centuries ahead of time. Also any course speed deviation by the ship and it will miss the fuel stream. No I still can't see how that could be a viable option. But keep submiting, we've been chewing over weirder ideas. Some might even work out. :) Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 4 20:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1341" "Mon" "4" "August" "1997" "23:44:24" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "38" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA13356 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 4 Aug 1997 20:44:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout05.mail.aol.com (emout05.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.96]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA13344 for ; Mon, 4 Aug 1997 20:44:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout05.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA01784; Mon, 4 Aug 1997 23:44:24 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970804234241_-588762206@emout05.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1340 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 23:44:24 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/3/97 4:44:31 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly wrote: > >>>>>>That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. >>>>>> Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a domed >>>>>>shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). >>>>> >>>>>I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables... >>>> >>>>Anchored to what? Unless the anchor weighs enough it can't 'anchor' the >>>>sail. In the case of fuel/sail, the sail is 400 times heavier. >>> >>>Anchored to the ship. The ship doesn't need to be heavier, it just should >>>want to accelerate less than the sail, which it does as soon as you cut the >>>cables. >> >>But the ship is (in my Fuel/Sail idea) 1/400th the weight of the sail. So >>the ship's weight is probably not enough to stablize the sail. > >The weight difference only modifies the speed at which changes can be made. >Indeed of the imbalances in the sail occur faster than then they can be >corrected, then we are in trouble. >But thinking about this, why did you want to make the sail so heavy? Why not >just put all that fuel in tank sattached to the ship and make the sail as >light as possible? > >Timothy The sail was made out of the fuel. Figured spreding it out would maximize the surface area for the collectors. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 5 02:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["690" "Tue" "5" "August" "1997" "11:49:33" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "20" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA12838 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 02:54:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA12829 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 02:54:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-030.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wvgKj-000FxwC; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 11:55:17 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 689 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Tue, 05 Aug 1997 11:49:33 +0100 Kelly, >>>But the ship is (in my Fuel/Sail idea) 1/400th the weight of the sail. So >>>the ship's weight is probably not enough to stablize the sail. >> >>The weight difference only modifies the speed at which changes can be made. >>Indeed of the imbalances in the sail occur faster than then they can be >>corrected, then we are in trouble. >>But thinking about this, why did you want to make the sail so heavy? Why not >>just put all that fuel in tank sattached to the ship and make the sail as >>light as possible? > >The sail was made out of the fuel. Figured spreding it out would maximize >the surface area for the collectors. Ah yes. I must have missed that before... Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 5 08:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1382" "Tue" "5" "August" "1997" "08:46:34" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "31" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id IAA17909 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 08:47:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id IAA17878 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 08:47:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA17373 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 08:46:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA16479; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 08:46:34 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708051546.IAA16479@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1381 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 08:46:34 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > Steve, > > > > I'm not sure what you mean with "things" but it simply is not true that > > > higher exhaust velocities are best. > > > >This is really very simple. > > No, it is not, otherwise you'd have acknowledged my approach. I'm starting > to doubt if you've looked at what I did. > > I've seen your calculations over and over, and know they are right, but only > if you care for a total energy (including restmass). We only care about > normal energy (like the kind you store in a battery, which excludes restmass). > The latter is what I minimized. > > Ken has done a good job in displaying our diffence of approach. I can't tell > it more clear. > > I'd which you'd just tell me that I'm wrong or right. I've been meaning to get back to you on this. I think you and Ken have finally gotten me to see what you were talking about, and at least intuitively I'm willing to accept that yes, you can minimize total energy expenditure if you have a fuel with a low mass-energy conversion ratio by using lower exhaust velocities and more reaction mass. This may mean a much higher fuel-to-payload ratio but, as we all agree, high conversion ratio fuels like matter-antimatter have their own difficulties. So I'll stop bugging you about that one, unless when I get around to doing the math I can't duplicate your results. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 5 13:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1919" "Tue" "5" "August" "1997" "14:53:42" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "48" "RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA16581 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 13:37:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA16554 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 13:37:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p22.gnt.com [204.49.68.227]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA06327 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 15:37:31 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA1B5.7A81A300@x2p45.gnt.com>; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 15:37:27 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA1B5.7A81A300@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1918 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 14:53:42 -0500 Kelly, > Agreed. Thats only fast enough to get to the near by stars. Even then only > once in a while. For real operations in interstellar space were going to > need some much better tricks. > Hey but .42 was pretty good! ;) Well, we can slam a Starwisp up to .9c in about three weeks with a Maser Sail. Perhaps we should start exploring now with Starwisps while we build infrastructure for larger manned sails. We could at least settle everything within about 10 light years if we could get up to .5c. We would be sending out ships crewed with children to do it....of course there wouldn't be any chance of coming back. What was the best figure for top velocity we came up with for RAM and RAIR? I've been thinking about the deceleration problem. Suppose we use a hybrid sail, if the holes in the mesh are smaller than the wavelength of the microwave beam it will reflect, and if it is smaller than the wavelength of the laser (i.e. solid) it will reflect the laser and the maser. So let's construct it in such a way that we have a thin film of material deposited on a thicker mesh. It will strengthen the sail considerably and reflect both microwave and laser radiation. This way we can use both solar light and/or maser arrays to accelerate up to speed quicker. Deceleration would be completely by light pressure from the target star which would require an earlier turnover, but it would still be a faster mission without the need for complicated two-stage mirrors, etc. And if we get really desperate, we could still eat the sail when we're done. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- There is nothing so big or so crazy that one out of a million technological societies may not feel itself driven to do, provided it is physically possible. Freeman Dyson, 1965 From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 5 16:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2720" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "01:21:51" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "70" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA26265 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 16:27:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA26216 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 16:27:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-021.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wvt0s-000FhHC; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 01:27:38 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2719 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 01:21:51 +0100 Lee, >> Hey but .42 was pretty good! ;) > >Well, we can slam a Starwisp up to .9c in about three weeks with a Maser >Sail. I wonder if we can keep the sail from being ripped apart at more than 15g. Furthermore the heating will likely melt away the sail. >Perhaps we should start exploring now with Starwisps while we build >infrastructure for larger manned sails. We could at least settle everything >within about 10 light years if we could get up to .5c. We would be sending >out ships crewed with children to do it....of course there wouldn't be any >chance of coming back. > >What was the best figure for top velocity we came up with for RAM and RAIR? I think we never came up with any number. We figured that there was just too little to scoop to accelerate as fast as we wanted too. >I've been thinking about the deceleration problem. Suppose we use a hybrid >sail, if the holes in the mesh are smaller than the wavelength of the >microwave beam it will reflect, and if it is smaller than the wavelength of >the laser (i.e. solid) it will reflect the laser and the maser. So let's >construct it in such a way that we have a thin film of material deposited >on a thicker mesh. It will strengthen the sail considerably and reflect both >microwave and laser radiation. This way we can use both solar light and/or >maser arrays to accelerate up to speed quicker. Deceleration would be >completely by light pressure from the target star which would require an >earlier turnover, but it would still be a faster mission without the need >for complicated two-stage mirrors, etc. OK, now you've done it. You've made me mad. >-| Sail size = A square m Sail mass: M = A * 0.0001 kg/m^2 gamma at 0.9c = 2.29 Momentum of the sail at 0.9c = gamma*M*v = A*0.0001*3E8*2.29 = A * 6.87E4 kgm/s Solar output at R=5E9m : 1.27E6 Watt/m^2 Solar momentum per square meter per second at R=5E9 m : p=E/c=0.00423 kgm/s Assume that miraculously this 1.27E6 Watt/m^2 is available all the time. It then will take (A*6.87E4)/(2*0.00423*A) = 8.1E6 seconds to stop the sail This is about 100 days. Think how far one travels at 0.45c during 100 days... Way further than where the value 1.27E6 Watt/m^2 is valid. For the last time, you can't stop a sail that moves with relativistic speeds by simply using unconcentrated solar light!!! (Also if you can stop the sail by using the plain sun, you would also be able to accelerate it using the plain sun.) Timothy P.S. I can't do any accurate calculations, since the math would soon become more difficult than anyone would like. A possible solution is to use a computer program that calculates discrete steps. However it will also show that it just can't be done. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 5 16:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["515" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "01:21:50" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "16" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id QAA26412 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 16:27:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA26396 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 16:27:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-021.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wvt0q-000FgnC; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 01:27:36 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 514 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 01:21:50 +0100 Steve wrote: >>I'd which you'd just tell me that I'm wrong or right. > >I've been meaning to get back to you on this. I think you and Ken have >finally gotten me to see what you were talking about, and at least >intuitively I'm willing to accept that yes, you can minimize total >energy expenditure if you have a fuel with a low mass-energy conversion >ratio by using lower exhaust velocities and more reaction mass. Hurrah! :) (Sorry, I was getting desperate in finding a clearer way to explain it.) Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 5 20:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["7580" "Tue" "5" "August" "1997" "22:24:03" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "219" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA04158 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 20:28:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id UAA04146 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 20:28:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p32.gnt.com [204.49.68.237]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA04824 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 22:27:55 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA1EE.CE22B240@x2p45.gnt.com>; Tue, 5 Aug 1997 22:27:49 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA1EE.CE22B240@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 7579 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 22:24:03 -0500 Timothy, > I wonder if we can keep the sail from being ripped apart at more than 15g. Depending on areal density we can *generate* up to 700 g with a sail. It may take diamond filament tethers to hold on to it, but we can do it. > Furthermore the heating will likely melt away the sail. For a 99% reflective sail during a powered perihelion maneuver, the highest temperature we would expect would be only 1000K, well within the limits of many materials we have considered. Unless you REALLY stack up a lot of masers or lasers coming out of the solar proximity, the temperature should never exceed this. Of course, with lower reflectivity sails this temperature goes up. > I think we never came up with any number. We figured that there was just too > little to scoop to accelerate as fast as we wanted too. Grrrr...now you've done it...}:-| I HATE ASCII MATH! > OK, now you've done it. You've made me mad. >-| > > Sail size = A square m > Sail mass: M = A * 0.0001 kg/m^2 > > gamma at 0.9c = 2.29 >Momentum of the sail at 0.9c = gamma*M*v = A*0.0001*3E8*2.29 = A * 6.87E4 kgm/s Lots deleted for brevity... > It then will take (A*6.87E4)/(2*0.00423*A) = 8.1E6 seconds to stop the sail > This is about 100 days. What, you think light pressure from a star just "magically" cuts off at some distance from the star? Time for a refresher course: Light pressure on a reflecting sail is of course a function of distance from the Sun, but it also depends on how reflective the sail is. A completely absorbing sail (a "black body" sail) with light incident perpendicular to its surface of intensity, I (watts/ sq. meter), experiences a pressure, Ps, of magnitude: I Ps = --- C where c is the velocity of light. If the sail is 100% reflective, then: 2I Ps = ---- C Near the Earth, I is about 1400 watts/m^2. The solar radiation pressure on a thin piece of aluminized mylar could produce a force several times the gravitational attraction of the Sun on that piece of plastic. For sail reflectivity other than 100%, k between 0 and 1.0, the formula for pressure on the sail material is: Ps = (1 + k)I/c So if a sail is 95% reflective, the solar radiation pressure will be reduced by about 2.5%. Because the Sun's light decreases in intensity as it spreads outward, it will be reduced according to the inverse square of the distance, r, from the Sun - that is, by 1/r^2. So the pressure varies with distance as: (I + k)Io Ps = --------- r^2 c where Io is the solar light intensity at the surface of the sun. (The formula is reasonably accurate only for r> > Sun's radius.) Elementary units of light, photons, carry momentum as well as. The momentum, P, of a solar photon is equivalent to its energy divided by the speed of light: P = E/c. At the dawn of the space age, T. C. Tsu analyzed interplanetary solar sailing, using the following relationship for light pressure on a 100% reflective sail: 2Sr Pr = ---- c where Sr is the solar irradiance. Applying the inverse-square law, we demonstrated (7): Sr = (3.04 x 10^25)/r^2 watt/m^2 where r is the separation (meters) between the sail and the Sun's center. For a sail that does not transmit any sunlight though which has a reflectivity, k, we showed: (1 + k)Sr Pr = ---------- c If the combined sail, cable, and payload mass is M and the circular sail's radius is Rs, the acceleration of the sail outward from the Sun is: (1 + k) (6.3 x 10^17) Rs^2 as = ------------------------- m/sec^2 2Mr^2 The final interstellar departure velocity, V@, in meters/sec of a solar sail starting with velocity, Vo at closest approach to the Sun we have calculated to be: V@ = [[O.5(l + k) (1.26 x 10^18 Rs^2 - 2.66 x 10^28M]/Mro + Vo^2]^0.5 where ro is the closest approach distance from the center of the Sun. Another useful formula for partially transmitting sails, k in the above equations is: Ra k = -------- (Ra + A) where Ra and A are the fractional sail reflectivity and absorption, respectively. Just when you thought it was safe to put away your physics books... > Think how far one travels at 0.45c during 100 days... > Way further than where the value 1.27E6 Watt/m^2 is valid. > > For the last time, you can't stop a sail that moves with relativistic speeds >by simply using unconcentrated solar light!!! > > (Also if you can stop the sail by using the plain sun, you would also be > able to accelerate it using the plain sun.) Of course you can, but... My idea was to boost quickly to cruise velocity, then take a much longer time to decelerate to make up for the higher cruise velocity. It made sense at first glance, but read on... > > P.S. I can't do any accurate calculations, since the math would soon become > more difficult than anyone would like. A possible solution is to use a > computer program that calculates discrete steps. However it will also show >that it just can't be done. Okay, here is where I eat crow... I did the math, and not only is it possible it is even possible to get up to high relativistic velocities. However, (drum roll and bagpipes playing a dirge) if there are humans on board, the best we can hope for from a purely solar powered ship is only about 0.003c. The initial acceleration required for relativistic velocities would kill people. What is the real bummer here is that if we do boost the sail with additional energy from masers or lasers in order to bring its cruise velocity up to relativistic speeds then there MUST be an additional amount of energy at the other end to decelerate it. Some deceleration is possible, much more than what you had calculated, but nowhere near enough to come down from much over 0.003c. The velocity of the sail decelerated starship a distance rf from the center of the target star is given by: __________________ / 2(J-GMstarMc) Vf= /Vc^2- ------------- \/ rfMc (1) where Vc is the interstellar cruise velocity of the starship, Mstar is the star's mass, and (1 + k) J = ------- (6.3 x 10^17) Rs^2Lf (Rs in meters) 2 (2) In Equation 2, Lf is the ratio of the star's to the Sun's luminosity. This works out to a limit of about 50 AU for any real acceleration/deceleration for a star in the same class as the Sun with similar luminosity. If you assume a mass of 5 X 10^7 for the ship it could be accelerated up to 0.003c and decelerated from 0.003c within 35 AU of each star without ever surpassing 15g. Umm, this is a mission duration of over 1,000 years by the way. I never REALLY liked sails anyway. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- I have seen the turnips singing By a lordly cabbage led; I have heard a dewdrop clinging To the rose that bowed her head; I have sniffed at a sonata, I have touched next Friday week; I have tasted a cantata I have smelt a sausage speak. Now of old if I had wildly Made the claims I do today I should soon, to put it mildly, Have been firmly led away; Doctors, acting with decision, Would have taken me in charge; Now they call it television -- And you see, I'm still at large! -- Lucio in the Manchester Guardian From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 02:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["372" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "11:09:19" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "17" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme (correction)" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id CAA17339 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 02:14:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id CAA17330 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 02:14:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0ww2BO-000GQ7C; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 11:15:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 371 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme (correction) Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 11:09:19 +0100 Lee, I wrote: >OK, now you've done it. You've made me mad. >-| > >Sail size = A square m >Sail mass: M = A * 0.0001 kg/m^2 > >gamma at 0.9c = 2.29 >Momentum of the sail at 0.9c = gamma*M*v = A*0.0001*3E8*2.29 = A * 6.87E4 kgm/s There should be a 0.9 in the line above: = A*0.0001*0.9*3E8*2.29 It won't make much of a difference for the final outcome though. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 04:24 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1970" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "13:18:38" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "58" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id EAA19826 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 04:24:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id EAA19816 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 04:24:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-017.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0ww4CX-000GTpC; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 13:24:25 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1969 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 13:18:38 +0100 Lee, >> It then will take (A*6.87E4)/(2*0.00423*A) = 8.1E6 seconds to stop the sail >> This is about 100 days. > >What, you think light pressure from a star just "magically" cuts off at some >distance from the star? No, but by then it is neglectable: Light intensity at 6.8E16 m (45 lightdays): 6.9E-9 Watt/m^2 Light intensity at 5E9 m : 1.3E6 Watt/m^2 That's about 14 magnitudes less (thus neglectable) >Time for a refresher course: >If the combined sail, cable, and payload mass is M and the circular sail's >radius is Rs, the acceleration of the sail outward from the Sun is: > > (1 + k) (6.3 x 10^17) Rs^2 >as = ------------------------- m/sec^2 > 2M r^2 So far OK, then you continue with: >The final interstellar departure velocity, V@, in meters/sec of a solar >sail starting with velocity, Vo at closest approach to the Sun we have >calculated >to be: > > V@ = [[O.5(l + k) (1.26 x 10^18 Rs^2 - 2.66 x 10^28M]/Mro + Vo^2]^0.5 > >where ro is the closest approach distance from the center of the Sun. Neat formula, but how did you get from "as" to "V@"? And where did this "l" come from? I haven't seen any relation between the sail size and the sail mass. That relation is the most important one when you are talking about sails. This alone makes your formula quite doubtful. True, if you can make it light enough per square mile, then you indeed can reach relativitic velocities. But I think there aren't materials that work under the circumstances we need. In the rest of your letter where you show that for a sail WITH ship it indeed isn't possible to slow down from relativistic velocities. This isn't true either (ASSUMING you can make a sail without a ship that can slow down from relativitic speeds). You simply would need to make the sail larger so that the "total mass" per "area of sail" would go down to similar numbers as for a sail without ship. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 06:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["623" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "08:44:33" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "19" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme (correction)" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id GAA10531 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 06:46:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id GAA10520 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 06:46:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p35.gnt.com [204.49.68.240]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA29337 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 08:46:30 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA245.398E4700@x2p45.gnt.com>; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 08:46:26 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA245.398E4700@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 622 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme (correction) Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 08:44:33 -0500 Timothy, > There should be a 0.9 in the line above: = A*0.0001*0.9*3E8*2.29 > It won't make much of a difference for the final outcome though. No, it doesn't make much difference. The key here as you pointed out is that the pressure of sunlight (Ps) drops off rapidly as you get farther away (inverse squared). Although you threw me with the 100 day figure, upon reflection the velocity puts you way beyond any useful range. I don't plan on taking a thousand years to get anywhere! I had to work it through using Tsu's original formulae before I could figure out where you were coming from. Lee Parker Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 07:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3165" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "09:24:37" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "68" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id HAA20422 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 07:33:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA20406 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 07:33:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p32.gnt.com [204.49.68.237]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA32687 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:33:32 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA24B.CA5D72A0@x2p45.gnt.com>; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:33:26 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA24B.CA5D72A0@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id HAA20408 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3164 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:24:37 -0500 Timothy, > No, but by then it is neglectable: Agreed > Neat formula, but how did you get from "as" to "V@"? > And where did this "l" come from? I skipped a lot of ASCII math, I TOLD you I don't like doing math on this forum :-P > I haven't seen any relation between the sail size and the sail mass. That > relation is the most important one when you are talking about sails. > This alone makes your formula quite doubtful. Umm, sorry, again, I skipped a lot. > True, if you can make it light enough per square mile, then you indeed can > reach relativistic velocities. But I think there aren't materials that work > under the circumstances we need. Although true if possible, I don't think we can get light enough for a manned ship. I am quite certain it can be done for unmanned probes. > In the rest of your letter where you show that for a sail WITH ship it > indeed isn't possible to slow down from relativistic velocities. Actually, what I said was that we can't accelerate a manned ship up to relativistic velocities without additional thrust besides the sun. And if we do use additional thrust, you can't slow it down in time because that extra thrust will not be present at the other end. All other things being equal, if acceleration out from the sun = A then deceleration at the other end must also be equal to or greater than A. Unless you are planning on purposefully not using some available acceleration at this end, in which case, what is the point? > This isn't true either (ASSUMING you can make a sail without a ship that can > slow down from relativistic speeds). > You simply would need to make the sail larger so that the "total mass" per > "area of sail" would go down to similar numbers as for a sail without ship. True to a point. As you pointed out there is a point at which Ps approaches zero close enough that it can be neglected. If you are working within realistic limits for maximum acceleration, then there is a corresponding maximum sail size that will produce that acceleration while close to the sun. The equations I used had already been optimized (sail size) to max at 14g for a very brief time during the initial acceleration. Although you could increase sail area somewhat as you moved farther out to compensate for the steadily decreasing thrust, no matter what you do your limits (areal density, acceleration per unit of sail area, inverse square) are going to rapidly converge to where you won't get any thrust no matter how much bigger you make the sail. I am not going to work through the math. I don't like doing ASCII math and you've reached my limit! Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way . . . knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation." -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Autobiography From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 09:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1558" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "09:13:23" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "32" "starship-design: still some hope" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA21739 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:13:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id JAA21723 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:13:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA27839; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:13:22 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA08988; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:13:23 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708061613.JAA08988@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1557 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: still some hope Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:13:23 -0700 Let's not give up on this light-deceleration quite yet. Sure, light pressure can't do it alone, but there's more than just light. There's also the solar wind and gravity. Here's a way we could maybe use all three: The sail doesn't come in straight toward the sun, but rather in a tight parabolic orbit around it. We'd have to figure out how close we could get, but the closer the better. The details of the star probably matter quite a bit as well. So on the way in we slow down from light pressure (although keep in mind that we're getting deeper into the star's graivty well, which will speed us up a little bit) When we're close enough, the solar wind acts as a drag; charging up the ship might help matters even more. As we get close to the nearest approach to the star the light pressure is now coming at the wrong angle to slow us down much, but the solar wind keeps getting denser and denser. Then we start to move away from the star, still braking in the solar wind, although nowthe light pressure is speeding us up again. At some optimal point we dump the sail (with as much velocity as we can handle, slowing us down even more) and let the star's gravity apply the final braking as we coast away. I don't have time to look at numbers, and I'm not even sure where I'd start. The first question to answer, though, would be: how close to a star can we get without frying the ship? From that we can compute the plasma density, and I should be able to give some braking numbers. (I'm supposed to be a plasma physicst, after all...) Ken From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 09:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1249" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "09:26:01" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "24" "starship-design: still some hope" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA26405 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:26:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA26392 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:26:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA19258 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:25:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA20081; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:26:01 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708061626.JAA20081@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199708061613.JAA08988@watt> References: <199708061613.JAA08988@watt> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1248 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: still some hope Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:26:01 -0700 Ken Wharton writes: > Let's not give up on this light-deceleration quite yet. > > Sure, light pressure can't do it alone, but there's more than just light. > There's also the solar wind and gravity. Here's a way we could maybe use > all three: > > The sail doesn't come in straight toward the sun, but rather in a tight > parabolic orbit around it. We'd have to figure out how close we could get, > but the closer the better. The details of the star probably matter quite > a bit as well. The critical notion here is that you have to be able to decelerate to below your periapsis escape velocity before you reach periapsis with the target star. Most likely the orbit of the ship will be hyperbolic (characteristic of velocity higher than the escape velocity at periapsis) without intervention from the other factors of thrust from light and solar wind. Given that the periapsis escape velocity will be pretty low compared to the velocity of the ship as it approaches the system, I don't think the problem of orbital capture by the target star is significantly different than the problem of braking to a complete stop relative to the target star, since the difference between the velocities is only a few tens of miles per second. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 14:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["239" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "17:20:40" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "10" "starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA09529 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 14:20:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA09502 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 14:20:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id REE26036; Wed, 06 Aug 1997 17:18:12 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970806.172040.3190.0.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-1,4-8 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 238 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 17:20:40 -0400 Everyone, Check this one out. Their plan is to use antiprotons to catalyze a fission/fusion drive for use within the solar system. They have a paper on antimatter production, storage and transport. http://antimatter.phys.psu.edu Jim From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 19:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3568" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "20:21:39" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "37" "RE: starship-design: still some hope" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA01639 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 19:22:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01620 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 19:22:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p45.gnt.com (x2p15.gnt.com [204.49.68.220]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA16198 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 21:22:37 -0500 Received: by x2p45.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA2AE.DA7A7940@x2p45.gnt.com>; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 21:22:33 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA2AE.DA7A7940@x2p45.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id TAA01623 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3567 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: still some hope Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 20:21:39 -0500 Ken, > Sure, light pressure can't do it alone, but there's more than just light. > There's also the solar wind and gravity. Here's a way we could maybe use > all three: My point was that if we use every trick in the book to accelerate away from the Sun, and we are approaching another Sun with similar mass, luminosity, etc. then we will have to use all the same tricks to decelerate. All other things being equal, the maximum cruise velocity we can achieve using every trick ever thought of for solar sailing is only 0.003 c which is woefully inadequate. Timothy's point was that there wasn't sufficient time to decelerate from 0.42 c using a sail alone - even if we use every trick in the book, and he is right. The problem here is a little complicated. The only area where we can get sufficient useful solar light pressure is too close to a yellow dwarf to be usable. We CAN get up to higher velocities by increasing the "lightness ratio" of the sail. This means using a larger sail area or decreasing the payload to thrust ratio or both, etc. Only, when we do this the acceleration force quickly leaves the bounds of what we can survive. For example, the Icarus mission which was proposed several years ago used a powered perihelion maneuver, a one kilometer radius sail with a frontal density loading of 2 x10^-5 kg/m^2 and weighed only 63 kg. It would be able to reach 0.012 c but would experience a maximum acceleration of over 400 g's to get there. We would be paste. Even at this august velocity it was expected to take 350 years to get to Alpha Centauri. The "solar wind", as someone pointed out in my slip of the tongue, is basically useless. Gravity was already figured in, it is an integral part of the powered perihelion maneuver, and again, if we use it to get out of solar space we will have to employ it to decelerate also, or find something else just as good. Charging the sail during deceleration does make quite a difference, but it was allowed for (and used) in Tsu's colony ship proposal, which is where most of the math I used came from. > I don't have time to look at numbers, and I'm not even sure where I'd > start. The first question to answer, though, would be: how close to a > star can we get without frying the ship? From that we can compute the plasma > density, and I should be able to give some braking numbers. (I'm supposed to > be a plasma physicist, after all...) The distance from the Sun (or any sun for that matter) to get full potential acceleration has been considered to be 1 to 1.5 solar radii. I don't know where they came up with this number, but most of the acceleration schemes I have seen required the use of an occulter in order to unfurl the sail at perihelion. Besides Tsu, Forward and others have devoted quite a bit of study to this particular concept, chiefly because it is the only one which is currently technically feasible, and pronounced it doable. On a further note, my apologies to Timothy for so many short cuts in my math, but I really do hate ASCII math/art, do you have an equation editor? Can you embed files from it in e-mail? The sail area was figured in, it was the lightness number represented by Lf in at least one of the equations. Lee Parker (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." -- Albert Einstein From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 19:49 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2580" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "22:49:06" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "65" "Re: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA08635 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 19:49:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout03.mail.aol.com (emout03.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.94]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA08614 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 19:49:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout03.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA07371; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 22:49:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970806224809_-1808166046@emout03.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2579 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 22:49:06 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/5/97 3:55:37 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly, > >> Agreed. Thats only fast enough to get to the near by stars. Even then only >> once in a while. For real operations in interstellar space were going to >> need some much better tricks. > >> Hey but .42 was pretty good! ;) > > >Well, we can slam a Starwisp up to .9c in about three weeks with a Maser >Sail. Perhaps we should start exploring now with Starwisps while we build >infrastructure for larger manned sails. We could at least settle everything >within about 10 light years if we could get up to .5c. We would be sending >out ships crewed with children to do it....of course there wouldn't be any >chance of coming back. What good is a starwhisp you can't stop in the target system? Multi gen ships ad a host of problems. A multi-generation colony ship would probably need to be a few orders of magnatude bigger and more complex. We'ld never try them with sublight ships. >What was the best figure for top velocity we came up with for RAM and RAIR? Never did. Looked like their was so little to scopp it wasn't worth the bother. I figured Explorer would have train car sized fuel packets set to it, and docket to it. Less hassel then rair. Top speed for that was probably less then 30% of C. It was dependand on how far you could accuratly deliver the fuel packets. >I've been thinking about the deceleration problem. Suppose we use a hybrid >sail, if the holes in the mesh are smaller than the wavelength of the >microwave beam it will reflect, and if it is smaller than the wavelength of >the laser (i.e. solid) it will reflect the laser and the maser. So let's >construct it in such a way that we have a thin film of material deposited >on a thicker mesh. It will strengthen the sail considerably and reflect both >microwave and laser radiation. This way we can use both solar light and/or >maser arrays to accelerate up to speed quicker. Deceleration would be >completely by light pressure from the target star which would require an >earlier turnover, but it would still be a faster mission without the need >for complicated two-stage mirrors, etc. > >And if we get really desperate, we could still eat the sail when we're done. > > >Lee Parker Afriad solar energy is far too weak to ever accelerate or decelerate a starship. Might as well use a flashlight for thrust. Hell a flashlight would do better! (More light once your out a ways.) Thou adding multiple beams might have advantages. Say a smaller (thou hotter) sail? Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 20:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4452" "Wed" "6" "August" "1997" "22:51:26" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "96" "Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id UAA24549 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 20:50:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id UAA24532 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 20:50:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA11943; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 22:51:27 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708070351.AA11943@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970806224815_179591394@emout06.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 6, 97 10:48:42 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4451 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 22:51:26 -0500 (CDT) I just joined this list, and maybe this e-mail will even work... KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/5/97 1:31:54 AM, you wrote: >>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>In a message dated 8/4/97 12:49:39 PM, you wrote: >>>>>Now for the bad news - you have to slow down. We can't pre-load >>>>>a deceleration course track into the target star with fuel across >>>>>interstellar distances. ... >>>>This simply is not true! It is indeed possible to pre-load a >>>>deceleration course track. The trick is that this deceleration >>>>course track is travelling at relativistic velocities, catching >>>>up with the starship. >>>>The basic idea is to launch a bunch of fuel packets after the >>>>starship has launched at relativistic speeds. IMO, the best >>>>launch method would be RPB propulsion. These packets travel >>>>faster than the starship to catch up with it when it reaches >>>>the destination system. [...] >>... I was imaginining larger packets, ala those described >>in your "externally fueled fusion drive" web page. These wouldn't >>be affected by interstellar magnetic fields much and would include >>a pellet launcher (and possibly also a dedicated rocket) to roughly >>maintain course. >>The pellet launcher would allow its load of fuel to be scattered >>evenly along a long "track" for the ramjet to use. Not much of >>a targetting system is needed assuming these packets are remotely >>controlled by the starship. >Ok, similar problem thou. The onboard propulsions going to need to be as >extensive as the ships, and going at about the same speed as the ship. So >you might as well dock with the ship and save the hassel. I guess we're not seeing eye to eye. As I see it, the purpose of the acceleration and deceleration tracks is to provide thrust in a way similar to the RAIR concept. The serious problem with the RAIR concept is that interstellar hydrogen just isn't dense enough. The fuel pellets are supposed to remedy this (so ignore all that interstellar hydrogen). These pellets are _supposed_ to get scooped up at very high speeds. In fact, the ramjet depends upon the high speed "impact" with the magnetic fields (and possibly on board lithium stores) in order to ignite the pellets without ever braking them to the ship's speed. >>>Secound. To avoid the deta-v gain from scooping up fuel thats going faster >>>then you (your are trying to slow down) the fuel has to be at a relativly >>>slow velocity. (Ideally slightly slower than you at all points of the >>This is nonsense. The problem is similar to that posed by the >>acceleration track--at first, the relative velocity of the incoming >>packets/pellets is low, but it increases as the starship accelerates >>until at the end of the run, the relative velocity is approximately >>the terminal velocity. >>If you can tackle the problem of the acceleration track, the >>deceleration track shouldn't be a problem. >>In the acceleration track, delta-v gain is avoided by using a magnetic >>scoop ramjet. The same ramjet could be used for the deceleration >>track. >No thats not how the accel track works. The fuel is launched to intercept >the ship at a given time, going at about the ships speed (or a little less). > Over solar system distences you can do that, but over interstellar you'ld >miss. This presumes the ability to "shoot" fuel pellets or packets at relativistic speeds in a very short time frame (about half the total time of the acceleration run). This requires a _lot_ of power--maybe even more power than using a laser sail to propel the target ship (which is less efficient, but can be spread out over practically the entire time of the acceleration run). Because of this, I assumed the acceleration tracks discussed wrt RAIR and externally fueled fusion rocket were relatively slow, set up over several years before the acceleration run. >Besides if the fuel was going as fast as the ship. When the ship >slowed down it would blow past it. If it was going slow enough to scoop up, >it would have needed to be launched decades to centuries ahead of time. > Other wise the ship would have outrun it years before. I thought the RAIR was _supposed_ to scoop up "fuel" blowing past it at the same relativistic speeds as its cruise speed. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 6 21:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1846" "Thu" "7" "August" "1997" "00:19:45" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "46" "Re: starship-design: still some hope" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id VAA02441 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 21:20:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout11.mail.aol.com (emout11.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.26]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA02423 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 21:20:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout11.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA15783; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 00:19:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970807001943_-287896563@emout11.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1845 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: still some hope Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 00:19:45 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/6/97 10:13:37 AM, you wrote: > >Let's not give up on this light-deceleration quite yet. > >Sure, light pressure can't do it alone, but there's more than just light. >There's also the solar wind and gravity. Here's a way we could maybe use >all three: > >The sail doesn't come in straight toward the sun, but rather in a tight >parabolic orbit around it. We'd have to figure out how close we could get, >but the closer the better. The details of the star probably matter quite >a bit as well. > >So on the way in we slow down from light pressure (although keep in mind that >we're getting deeper into the star's graivty well, which will speed us up >a little bit) When we're close enough, the solar wind acts as a drag; >charging up the ship might help matters even more. As we get close to the >nearest approach to the star the light pressure is now coming at the wrong >angle to slow us down much, but the solar wind keeps getting denser and >denser. Then we start to move away from the star, still braking in the >solar wind, although nowthe light pressure is speeding us up again. >At some optimal point we dump the sail (with as much velocity as we can >handle, slowing us down even more) and let the star's gravity apply the final >braking as we coast away. > >I don't have time to look at numbers, and I'm not even sure where I'd >start. The first question to answer, though, would be: how close to a >star can we get without frying the ship? From that we can compute the plasma >density, and I should be able to give some braking numbers. (I'm supposed to >be a plasma physicst, after all...) > >Ken Ah, Ken. The ships cruse speed is a major fraction of light speed. Unless your doing a close approach to a neutron star. Your "parabolic orbit" would be indistinguishable from a straight line. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 7 09:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["867" "Thu" "7" "August" "1997" "18:30:48" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id JAA18620 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 09:32:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA18577 for ; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 09:32:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id SAA04687; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 18:30:48 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708071630.SAA04687@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 866 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 18:30:48 +0200 (MET DST) > From: jimaclem@juno.com > > Check this one out. Their plan is to use antiprotons to catalyze a > fission/fusion drive for use within the solar system. They have a paper > on antimatter production, storage and transport. > > http://antimatter.phys.psu.edu > Yes, that is really exciting. The general spaceship design resembles that described by R.L. Forward in "Martian Rainbow". The exciting information concerns the properties of antiprotons: when they cool enough, the ratio of annihilation with the residual gas in the vacuum chamber drops (unexpectedly) very rapidly ! Does it mean that sufficiently cool antimatter is rather reluctant to annihilate with the normal matter? If it proves to be true, storage and handling of the antimatter would be a lot easier (expect tanks with kilograms of antimatter hauled over interstate highways ... ;-)) -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 7 10:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1977" "Thu" "7" "August" "1997" "12:38:17" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "43" "Re: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA14759 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 10:37:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id KAA14685 for ; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 10:37:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA23829; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 12:38:17 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708071738.AA23829@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970806224809_-1808166046@emout03.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 6, 97 10:49:06 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1976 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 12:38:17 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/5/97 3:55:37 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) >wrote: >>Well, we can slam a Starwisp up to .9c in about three weeks with a Maser >>Sail. Perhaps we should start exploring now with Starwisps while we build >>infrastructure for larger manned sails. We could at least settle everything >>within about 10 light years if we could get up to .5c. We would be sending >>out ships crewed with children to do it....of course there wouldn't be any >>chance of coming back. >What good is a starwhisp you can't stop in the target system? Here's an insane idea. (Some ideas are just kind of insane, like using starlight to *ahem* decelerate a starship--this idea is _really_ insane.) You know how integrated circuits are currently manufactured by building up and/or etching away layers of semiconductors and metal? What if such manufacturing techniques were employed to build something bigger, like a mining robot or something? Maybe you could build something on an atmosphereless planet using templates transported by starwisps slamming into it at relativistic speeds. You can etch away layers by using thin templates and you could deposit layers by using a layer which vaporized in sunlight (so as to be a puff of gas by the time it hit the target). _If_ you could manufacture things this way, it is conceivable that you could build mining robots and mass drivers on a target world which could create a deceleration track for later starships. But like I said, this is a _really_ insane idea. The mind boggles at the technical difficulties. >Multi gen ships ad a host of problems. A multi-generation colony ship would >probably need to be a few orders of magnatude bigger and more complex. We'ld >never try them with sublight ships. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 7 13:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2980" "Thu" "7" "August" "1997" "16:45:03" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "73" "Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA05052 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 13:44:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA05010 for ; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 13:44:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id QyV07065; Thu, 07 Aug 1997 16:42:32 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970807.164504.4390.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <9708071738.AA23829@bit.csc.lsu.edu> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-58,71 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2979 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 16:45:03 -0400 On Thu, 7 Aug 1997 12:38:17 -0500 (CDT) kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) writes: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/5/97 3:55:37 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. >Parker) >>wrote: > >>>Well, we can slam a Starwisp up to .9c in about three weeks with a >Maser >>>Sail. Perhaps we should start exploring now with Starwisps while we >build >>>infrastructure for larger manned sails. We could at least settle >everything >>>within about 10 light years if we could get up to .5c. We would be >sending >>>out ships crewed with children to do it....of course there wouldn't >be any >>>chance of coming back. > >>What good is a starwhisp you can't stop in the target system? > >Here's an insane idea. (Some ideas are just kind of insane, like >using >starlight to *ahem* decelerate a starship--this idea is _really_ >insane.) > >You know how integrated circuits are currently manufactured by >building >up and/or etching away layers of semiconductors and metal? What if >such manufacturing techniques were employed to build something bigger, >like a mining robot or something? > >Maybe you could build something on an atmosphereless planet using >templates transported by starwisps slamming into it at relativistic >speeds. You can etch away layers by using thin templates and you >could deposit layers by using a layer which vaporized in sunlight >(so as to be a puff of gas by the time it hit the target). > >_If_ you could manufacture things this way, it is conceivable that >you could build mining robots and mass drivers on a target world >which could create a deceleration track for later starships. > >But like I said, this is a _really_ insane idea. The mind boggles >at the technical difficulties. > >>Multi gen ships ad a host of problems. A multi-generation colony >ship would >>probably need to be a few orders of magnatude bigger and more >complex. We'ld >>never try them with sublight ships. >-- > _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu >http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo > __|_)o(_|__ >/___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... >\=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi > My friend, this is not as insane as you think. Etching something on the surface of a distant body is pretty stretched, but a method similar to what you describe exists now. Its called laser stereo lithography, or rapid prototying. A plastic that is hardened by light of a particular frequency is spread in thin (THIN!!!!) layers, with each layer having its slice of an artifact made by a CAD guided laser. Fairly complex items can now be made, so in theory very complex items, i.e., robots, etc. could be made in the near future. My thinking is that small probes could be sent carrying miniature ( or micro) sized systems to start building larger robotic units, which could construct the necessary infrastructure in the target system. Von Neumann machines may be nearer than we think. Maybe we should start here in our own system for practice. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 7 20:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5307" "Thu" "7" "August" "1997" "23:56:43" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "125" "Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA00985 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 20:57:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA00972 for ; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 20:57:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA18525; Thu, 7 Aug 1997 23:56:43 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970807235518_-1939890093@emout07.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5306 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 23:56:43 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/7/97 5:22:11 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >I just joined this list, and maybe this e-mail will even work... Good luck. ;) >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/5/97 1:31:54 AM, you wrote: > >>>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>>In a message dated 8/4/97 12:49:39 PM, you wrote: > >>>>>>Now for the bad news - you have to slow down. We can't pre-load >>>>>>a deceleration course track into the target star with fuel across >>>>>>interstellar distances. ... > >>>>>This simply is not true! It is indeed possible to pre-load a >>>>>deceleration course track. The trick is that this deceleration >>>>>course track is travelling at relativistic velocities, catching >>>>>up with the starship. > >>>>>The basic idea is to launch a bunch of fuel packets after the >>>>>starship has launched at relativistic speeds. IMO, the best >>>>>launch method would be RPB propulsion. These packets travel >>>>>faster than the starship to catch up with it when it reaches >>>>>the destination system. >[...] >>>... I was imaginining larger packets, ala those described >>>in your "externally fueled fusion drive" web page. These wouldn't >>>be affected by interstellar magnetic fields much and would include >>>a pellet launcher (and possibly also a dedicated rocket) to roughly >>>maintain course. > >>>The pellet launcher would allow its load of fuel to be scattered >>>evenly along a long "track" for the ramjet to use. Not much of >>>a targetting system is needed assuming these packets are remotely >>>controlled by the starship. > >>Ok, similar problem thou. The onboard propulsions going to need to be as >>extensive as the ships, and going at about the same speed as the ship. So >>you might as well dock with the ship and save the hassel. > >I guess we're not seeing eye to eye. As I see it, the purpose >of the acceleration and deceleration tracks is to provide >thrust in a way similar to the RAIR concept. The serious problem >with the RAIR concept is that interstellar hydrogen just isn't >dense enough. The fuel pellets are supposed to remedy this >(so ignore all that interstellar hydrogen). > >These pellets are _supposed_ to get scooped up at very high speeds. >In fact, the ramjet depends upon the high speed "impact" with the >magnetic fields (and possibly on board lithium stores) in order to >ignite the pellets without ever braking them to the ship's speed. That wasn't part of the idea for this. Especially if you are doing 30%-40% of lightspeed. You'ld shread the frount of the ship. >>>>Secound. To avoid the deta-v gain from scooping up fuel thats going faster >>>>then you (your are trying to slow down) the fuel has to be at a relativly >>>>slow velocity. (Ideally slightly slower than you at all points of the > >>>This is nonsense. The problem is similar to that posed by the >>>acceleration track--at first, the relative velocity of the incoming >>>packets/pellets is low, but it increases as the starship accelerates >>>until at the end of the run, the relative velocity is approximately >>>the terminal velocity. > >>>If you can tackle the problem of the acceleration track, the >>>deceleration track shouldn't be a problem. > >>>In the acceleration track, delta-v gain is avoided by using a magnetic >>>scoop ramjet. The same ramjet could be used for the deceleration >>>track. > >>No thats not how the accel track works. The fuel is launched to intercept >>the ship at a given time, going at about the ships speed (or a little less). >> Over solar system distences you can do that, but over interstellar you'ld >>miss. > >This presumes the ability to "shoot" fuel pellets or packets at >relativistic speeds in a very short time frame (about half the >total time of the acceleration run). This requires a _lot_ of >power--maybe even more power than using a laser sail to propel the >target ship (which is less efficient, but can be spread out over >practically the entire time of the acceleration run). Thats possible. Actually its likely to be more since the fuel launchers probably would be as efficent as a microwave beam source. >Because of this, I assumed the acceleration tracks discussed wrt >RAIR and externally fueled fusion rocket were relatively slow, >set up over several years before the acceleration run. No, that wouldn't work. The fuel can't have to different a velocity from the ship trying to catch it. Especially if the ship doing over a third of lightspeed. However this is talking about the accel track. In the decel track its irrelavent since you can't catch fuel runing faster then you. But the fuel must be launched at nearly your speed if its going to get there about the same time as you. But since your slowing down (hopefully) inevitably the fuel would be out runing you. >>Besides if the fuel was going as fast as the ship. When the ship >>slowed down it would blow past it. If it was going slow enough to scoop up, >>it would have needed to be launched decades to centuries ahead of time. >> Other wise the ship would have outrun it years before. > >I thought the RAIR was _supposed_ to scoop up "fuel" blowing past >it at the same relativistic speeds as its cruise speed. It can't scoop up fuel thats receading in the distence in frount of it, or raming it from behind? Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 8 03:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["86" "Fri" "8" "August" "1997" "12:28:01" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "7" "starship-design: Congratulations SD" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA01968 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 03:33:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id DAA01958 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 03:33:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-003.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wwmMb-000HdSC; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 12:33:45 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 85 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Congratulations SD Date: Fri, 08 Aug 1997 12:28:01 +0100 Hurrah, Starship Design mailing is existing for 3 years now! (August 8th) Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 8 07:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1075" "Fri" "8" "August" "1997" "16:10:21" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "34" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA03780 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 07:16:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA03769 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 07:16:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-028.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wwppm-000JdUC; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:16:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1074 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Fri, 08 Aug 1997 16:10:21 +0100 Lee, >> Neat formula, but how did you get from "as" to "V@"? >> And where did this "l" come from? > >I skipped a lot of ASCII math, I TOLD you I don't like doing math on this >forum :-P That's probably because you'll be asked to do more ;) >> True, if you can make it light enough per square mile, then you indeed can >> reach relativistic velocities. But I think there aren't materials that work >> under the circumstances we need. > >Although true if possible, I don't think we can get light enough for a manned >ship. I am quite certain it can be done for unmanned probes. What weight per square meter do you suggest? (In my example I used a sail with 0.1 gram per square meter) >I am not going to work through the math. I don't like doing ASCII math and >you've reached my limit! I guess that T.C. Tsu paper is not available in electronic format? Timothy P.S. You might read the following paper from Geoffrey A. Landis http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/laser.txt After heaving read that you may be even less enthousiastic about using a sail. From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 8 07:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4646" "Fri" "8" "August" "1997" "09:23:19" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "97" "Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA05293 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 07:22:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA05284 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 07:22:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA11146; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 09:23:19 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708081423.AA11146@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970807235518_-1939890093@emout07.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 7, 97 11:56:43 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4645 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: KellySt@aol.com Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 09:23:19 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/7/97 5:22:11 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>I guess we're not seeing eye to eye. As I see it, the purpose >>of the acceleration and deceleration tracks is to provide >>thrust in a way similar to the RAIR concept. The serious problem >>with the RAIR concept is that interstellar hydrogen just isn't >>dense enough. The fuel pellets are supposed to remedy this >>(so ignore all that interstellar hydrogen). >>These pellets are _supposed_ to get scooped up at very high speeds. >>In fact, the ramjet depends upon the high speed "impact" with the >>magnetic fields (and possibly on board lithium stores) in order to >>ignite the pellets without ever braking them to the ship's speed. >That wasn't part of the idea for this. Especially if you are doing 30%-40% >of lightspeed. You'ld shread the frount of the ship. Well, then I guess my idea is more original than I thought. So here is my concept for the acceleration track: 1. An relatively slow moving acceleration track is set up so that somehow a track of small fission/fusion pellets are spaced along a line. (I imagine a string of pellet shooting fuelpacket ships, to minimize the time/distance between firing the pellets and their target pickup points.) 2. The starship is a ramjet design, with a powerful magnetic ramscoop in the front, a hollow cylinder hull for the main body, and a magnetic rocket nozzle in the rear. 3. Fuel pellets are scooped up by the magnetic ramscoop and fused. When they first encounter the magnetic field of the first coils (which may extend far forward of the ship), inducted electric currents instantly plasmatize them. Then the pinching effect of the converging magnetic field lines compress these pellets as they are funnelled through the hollow central core of the ship. This compression further heats the pellet and provides the inertial confinement for fusion. At high speeds, it may even initiate fusion, but at lower speeds impacting with lithium or boron from on board stores may be needed. 4. The fusion reaction ideally takes place beyond the main body of the ship within the magnetic rocket nozzle in the rear. This nozzle directs the products backwards with a somewhat higher velocity than they entered with, thus producing thrust. As you can see, the pellets don't hit the front of the ship, and the ship actually _depends_ upon them entering at a high enough velocity. The idea for the deceleration track? Same idea, but with the ship turned around 180 degrees. Yes, this implies having some shielding in the back of the ship, but the deceleration run shouldn't last too long. >>>>If you can tackle the problem of the acceleration track, the >>>>deceleration track shouldn't be a problem. >>This presumes the ability to "shoot" fuel pellets or packets at >>relativistic speeds in a very short time frame (about half the >>total time of the acceleration run). This requires a _lot_ of >>power--maybe even more power than using a laser sail to propel the >>target ship (which is less efficient, but can be spread out over >>practically the entire time of the acceleration run). >Thats possible. Actually its likely to be more since the fuel launchers >probably would be as efficent as a microwave beam source. The fuel launchers would be as efficient? I can't imagine how, assuming you want muzzle velocities greater than 1,000km/s. If you want a muzzle velocity of 10,000km/s or more, I doubt you can make an electromagnetic accelerator long enough to not melt and vaporize your pellets before they even reach the muzzle. In order for the pellet to not absorb some percentage of the energy being used to accelerate it, it would have to be superconducting--but that puts a limit on how strong the magnetic fields can be! Since the length needed is proportional to the square of the muzzle velocity... That leaves accelerating pellets by laser sail or RPB magsail. Of the two, RPB magsail is more efficient (and has the added bonus of eliminating the problem of heating up the sail), but it's still not very efficient (compared to an EM mass driver). >However this is talking about the accel track. In the decel track its >irrelavent since you can't catch fuel runing faster then you. You turn the ship around 180 degrees. I thought that was obvious, but I guess it requires pointing out. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 8 13:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1121" "Fri" "8" "August" "1997" "22:11:21" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "31" "starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA02100 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 13:16:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA02088 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 13:16:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-017.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wwvT8-000JycC; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 22:17:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1120 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Fri, 08 Aug 1997 22:11:21 +0100 Isaac You wrote to Kelly: >Well, then I guess my idea is more original than I thought. So here is >my concept for the acceleration track: > >1. An relatively slow moving acceleration track is set up so that > somehow a track of small fission/fusion pellets are spaced along > a line. (I imagine a string of pellet shooting fuelpacket ships, > to minimize the time/distance between firing the pellets and > their target pickup points.) If the pellets are slow moving, then what is the use of pellets? Catching pellets like this, will not give a significant energy advantage over taking the pellets with you (=attached to the starship) from the start. >The idea for the deceleration track? > >Same idea, but with the ship turned around 180 degrees. Yes, this >implies having some shielding in the back of the ship, but the >deceleration run shouldn't last too long. Still you have to launch the pellets many many years in advance. This above all is considered the worst problem for the "pellet-track" idea. It may not be a technological problem, but it surely is a big ideological problem. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 8 13:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["174" "Fri" "8" "August" "1997" "15:17:05" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "10" "RE: starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA14901 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 13:54:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA14886 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 13:54:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p5.gnt.com [204.49.68.210]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA02077 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 15:54:24 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA413.56524F60@x2p5.gnt.com>; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 15:54:21 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA413.56524F60@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 173 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 15:17:05 -0500 Zenon, > (expect tanks with kilograms of antimatter hauled over interstate > highways ... ;-)) And I thought transporting hypergolic fuels was dangerous.... Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 8 14:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4157" "Fri" "8" "August" "1997" "16:17:49" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "90" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA22878 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 14:17:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id OAA22845 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 14:17:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA21328; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:17:50 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708082117.AA21328@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 8, 97 10:11:21 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4156 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:17:49 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Isaac >You wrote to Kelly: >>Well, then I guess my idea is more original than I thought. So here is >>my concept for the acceleration track: >>1. An relatively slow moving acceleration track is set up so that >> somehow a track of small fission/fusion pellets are spaced along >> a line. (I imagine a string of pellet shooting fuelpacket ships, >> to minimize the time/distance between firing the pellets and >> their target pickup points.) >If the pellets are slow moving, then what is the use of pellets? >Catching pellets like this, will not give a significant energy advantage >over taking the pellets with you (=attached to the starship) from the start. The advantages are: 1. You only have to accelerate the unfueled ship. 2. You don't have to bend over backwards trying to ignite fusion (since you're using the pellet's kinetic energy). It's actually _easier_ to implement a fusion ramjet than it is to implement a onboard fusion drive. 3. The fuel requirements for a given cruise velocity go up roughly linearly, as opposed to exponentially for a fusion drive. I am not even convinced that we will even develop sustained fusion reactions in the next millenia, given the technical problems with the high magnetic fields and pressures needed (magnetic fields are "leaky" and plasma just loves squeezing out and amplifying those "leaks"). Needless to say, I'm skeptical about the potential to develop fusion drives, and looking at the designs envisionned for normal fusion drive starships, I'm _very_ skeptical that we can hope to acheive any large fraction of the theoretical maximum Isp. and 4. The effort involved may be spread over a long period of time. For the acceleration track, this might not be much of an issue, because all the time spent setting up the acceleration track is simply delaying the completion of the mission that much longer. For the deceleration track, this is a critical bonus because you can manufacture and send fuel packet drones over a period of years while the starship is progressing toward the target system. And no, you do not "catch" the pellets in the sense that you brake them up to the ship's speed. The plasma remains of the pellets blow through the hollow central core at high speed. It's a ramjet. >>The idea for the deceleration track? >>Same idea, but with the ship turned around 180 degrees. Yes, this >>implies having some shielding in the back of the ship, but the >>deceleration run shouldn't last too long. >Still you have to launch the pellets many many years in advance. No, I assume that all resources prior to launch were devoted to the acceleration track and the starship itself. The deceleration track, which takes longer to set up and requires much more power, is launched _after_ the starship, at velocities somewhat higher than the starship's cruise speed to catch up with it. Assuming a mission to Bernard's Star at .5c, these deceleration track packets drones could be launched over a period of 3 years, at a maximum velocity of .67c (for the ones launched at the end), and all arrive at around the same time. Before arriving at the intercept points, each drone would fire its load of fuel pellets to arrive in a steady line to meet up with the starship. Now, this still requires a pretty heavy set up of RPB emitters to accelerate the packet drones up to relativistic speeds, but presumably these same RPB emitters could have been the ones used to accelerate the starship up to the minimum speed needed to operate the ramscoop (for the acceleration track). The difficulty of launching the packets gets progressively more difficult as time goes on, because they have to get faster and faster to catch up with the starship in time. However, this is perfectly in line with the idea of manufacturing more and more (and hopefully better) RPB emitters as the mission continues. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 8 14:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["513" "Fri" "8" "August" "1997" "16:20:06" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "16" "RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA01789 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 14:41:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA01748 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 14:41:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p5.gnt.com [204.49.68.210]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA05367 for ; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:41:41 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA419.F1820920@x2p5.gnt.com>; Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:41:39 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA419.F1820920@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 512 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:20:06 -0500 Timothy, I've NEVER been enthusiastic about solar/laser/maser/fuel sailing! I only said that it is the only current technology for which MOST of the engineering is done. Even then, there are still a few stumbling blocks. The mass ratios alone make all the other proposals unlivable. Of course, 1,000 year one way trips are also unlivable. Thanks for the link, I looked at it quickly. I was already familiar with the majority of the material but I did find the dielectric sail material interesting. Lee From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 9 07:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3610" "Sat" "9" "August" "1997" "16:41:26" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "84" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA25174 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 07:46:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA25164 for ; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 07:46:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-004.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wxCnQ-000FzIC; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 16:47:12 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3609 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Sat, 09 Aug 1997 16:41:26 +0100 Hello Isaac, >>If the pellets are slow moving, then what is the use of pellets? >>Catching pellets like this, will not give a significant energy advantage >>over taking the pellets with you (=attached to the starship) from the start. > >The advantages are: > >1. You only have to accelerate the unfueled ship. But you have to do more trouble to add momentum from the pellets. The higher their relative velocity, the more energy is needed to add an equal amount of momentum. (dE=0.5*dp*v) In a self-fueled ship you don't have this problem, the mass that is on board has zero relative velocity and thus momentum can be added much easier. My guess it that both effects cancel out. As long as you use the same amount of mass as for a self-fueled ship, a pellet track design needs just as much energy! However if you use more mass, and thus add less momentum per unit of weight, then you can indeed save energy. Steve VanDevender and I have a similar dilemma. If one has unlimited amounts of energy then using high exhaust velocities (ie. adding lots of momentum to small amounts of mass) is the best solution. However in reality we usually have lots of mass and limited amounts of energy. In these cases it is usually best to add little energy to huge amounts of mass. Since most designs take the mass with them, their mass is limited and their energy is limited, so one has to find a way somewhere in the middle. What I didn't think of during all these years of starship discussion, is that the pellet track can have quite large amounts of mass. That would mean that much less energy is needed. On the other hand you'd have quite unlimited amounts of fusion energy too. The only disadvantage is that you've to start making the track years in advance, depending on the lenght of the acceleration track and the velocity of the pellets. >2. You don't have to bend over backwards trying to ignite fusion (since > you're using the pellet's kinetic energy). It's actually _easier_ > to implement a fusion ramjet than it is to implement a onboard > fusion drive. Why is it easier? >3. The fuel requirements for a given cruise velocity go up roughly > linearly, as opposed to exponentially for a fusion drive. With "fusion drive" I assume you mean a design that takes all its fuel with it. You have to specify what you mean with fuel: mass or energy The energy (not mass) requirements for a selffueled design do not increase exponentially, but with a 3th power. I'm not so sure that a pellet track uses linearly more fuel if it increases its cruising velocity. My guess is that it will be 3th power too. Can you show/explain me why you think it will increase linearly? >4. The effort involved may be spread over a long period of time. > For the acceleration track, this might not be much of an issue, > because all the time spent setting up the acceleration track > is simply delaying the completion of the mission that much > longer. For the deceleration track, this is a critical bonus > because you can manufacture and send fuel packet drones over > a period of years while the starship is progressing toward > the target system. Ah, this is new as far as I know. The pellets catch up with the starship instead of vice versa. That indeed decreases the track preparation time. >>Still you have to launch the pellets many many years in advance. > >No, I assume that all resources prior to launch were devoted to >the acceleration track and the starship itself. Yes, now I understand. I assumed the pellets would have a slower velocity than the ships cruising speed. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 9 09:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["8864" "Sat" "9" "August" "1997" "11:48:12" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "185" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA13338 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 09:47:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA13322 for ; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 09:47:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA29738; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 11:48:12 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708091648.AA29738@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 9, 97 04:41:26 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 8863 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Sat, 9 Aug 1997 11:48:12 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Hello Isaac, >>>If the pellets are slow moving, then what is the use of pellets? >>>Catching pellets like this, will not give a significant energy advantage >>>over taking the pellets with you (=attached to the starship) from the start. >>The advantages are: >>1. You only have to accelerate the unfueled ship. >But you have to do more trouble to add momentum from the pellets. >The higher their relative velocity, the more energy is needed to add an >equal amount of momentum. (dE=0.5*dp*v) >In a self-fueled ship you don't have this problem, the mass that is on board >has zero relative velocity and thus momentum can be added much easier. While this is true, the advantage I state is still there. There is the disadvantage of the potential extra difficulty in deriving momentum from the pellets (but due to the way fusion power works, my bet is that the latter difficulty is not nearly as significant). >My guess it that both effects cancel out. Probably not. The problem of accelerating a fueled ship is a difficulty which rises in proportion to the propellant/payload ratio--this goes up exponentially with desired cruise velocity. The problem of accelerating pellets is a difficulty which rises _linearly_ in proportion to desired cruise velocity (or at worst with the square of the desired cruise velocity). Thus, if the propellant/payload ratio is rather low, the fueled ship wins out. If the propellant/payload ratio is rather high, the unfueled ship wins out. >As long as you use the same amount of mass as for a self-fueled ship, a >pellet track design needs just as much energy! >However if you use more mass, and thus add less momentum per unit of weight, >then you can indeed save energy. I imagine going this route--not to save energy, but to reduce _power_ requirements. The objective is to make the starship itself as lean and mean as possible, offloading all the work into whatever is setting up the acceleration tracks. However, the starship itself must have magnetic fields strong enough to contain the fusion reactions, and can only handle so much at a time (assuming superconductor coils, the magnetic field strength is limited). There is a strong desire for high thrust, and if you're limited in power, the only way to get higher thrust is to increase reaction mass. Saving energy is an inherent added bonus, of course. One thing that a lot of people seem to ignore when discussing traditional fusion rockets is that any fusion rocket with very high Isp will be _very_ low thrust, because of power requirements. >What I didn't think of during all these years of starship discussion, is >that the pellet track can have quite large amounts of mass. That would mean >that much less energy is needed. >On the other hand you'd have quite unlimited amounts of fusion energy too. >The only disadvantage is that you've to start making the track years in >advance, depending on the lenght of the acceleration track and the velocity >of the pellets. This is the primary reason for wanting high thrust in an acceleration track design. In order to limit how much time is needed to set it up, you _need_ a reasonably short track. The deceleration track can be set up over a long period of time, so this is less of a concern. However, it also can be set up so that the track can arrive at any "length" desired, so if your starship is already a high thrust design, there isn't any reason to _not_ make the deceleration run high thrust (and besides, this minimizes rear shielding requirements). >>2. You don't have to bend over backwards trying to ignite fusion (since >> you're using the pellet's kinetic energy). It's actually _easier_ >> to implement a fusion ramjet than it is to implement a onboard >> fusion drive. >Why is it easier? Because in order to initiate fusion, you need high temperature and pressure. In a traditional pulsed fusion rocket design, this is acheived with either very powerful lasers and/or a fission reaction. With the lasers, an incredible amount of power is needed (and for the deceleration run, don't bet on getting power beamed in from the source system). That means a powerful on board energy source and big heavy lasers. With a pure fission reaction providing confinement (H-bombs), there is a minimum size to the individual bombs, thus necessitating a big and heavy "nozzle" to direct the reactants rearward. A _really_ big and heavy nozzle. Which is also leaky, because you can't direct the neutrons rearward. And you'd better shield the payload and the fuel stores from the neutrons. In a traditional continuous fusion rocket design, you need magnetic confinement, but you can't use superconductors because the field strengths needed are too high. Thus, the confinement will be leaky--but this is sort of okay because you'll use the leaks for the thrust. However, those leaks mean a drain on the energy in the system, and if it's too leaky then you don't have the energy to sustain fusion. So far we haven't solved that problem but let's suppose we have. That _still_ leaves the problem of the big heavy non superconducting magnetic coils needed to confine the fusion reaction. The ramjet design is essentially a pulsed fusion rocket design. The big difference is that it uses the kinetic energy of the incoming pellets to provide the energy to initiate fusion. Conveniently enough, this power is directly "generated" within the pellet itself, so no equipment at all is needed to get the energy where it's needed! The ship still needs powerful magnetic coils to provide confinement, but these only need to be powerful enough to handle pulsed fusion (like the laser confinement pulsed scheme), and don't need the strength to sustain the pressure and concentration needed for sustained fusion. >>3. The fuel requirements for a given cruise velocity go up roughly >> linearly, as opposed to exponentially for a fusion drive. >With "fusion drive" I assume you mean a design that takes all its fuel with it. >You have to specify what you mean with fuel: mass or energy >The energy (not mass) requirements for a selffueled design do not increase >exponentially, but with a 3th power. Actually, the energy _does_ increase exponentially. The amount of propellant required increases exponentially, so the amount of energy required also does (because the amount of energy used goes up linearly with the amount of propellant used). This is well established in the rocket equation. You get exponential increases because in order to double your speed, you need to square the propellant/payload ratio. Why? Because you have to carry the propellant with you. How in the world do you get a 3rd power? >I'm not so sure that a pellet track uses linearly more fuel if it increases >its cruising velocity. My guess is that it will be 3th power too. >Can you show/explain me why you think it will increase linearly? Because you do not have to carry the propellant with you. The amount of thrust you get is still roughly proportional to the amount of propellant used, although you are right that it will get more difficult with speed. Due to the way the drive works, this increase shouldn't be much (mostly because it's not very efficient at low speeds--the amount of momentum added is limited by the magnetic fields). However, assuming a perfectly ideal accelerator track scheme, the increase will be with the square of the velocity. In the ideal situation, the same amount of energy is imparted to each incoming pellet, so the amount of thrust you get from a pellet is inversely proportional to its relative velocity. This will blow up track mass requirements as the square of the desired cruise velocity. >>4. The effort involved may be spread over a long period of time. >> For the acceleration track, this might not be much of an issue, >> because all the time spent setting up the acceleration track >> is simply delaying the completion of the mission that much >> longer. For the deceleration track, this is a critical bonus >> because you can manufacture and send fuel packet drones over >> a period of years while the starship is progressing toward >> the target system. >Ah, this is new as far as I know. The pellets catch up with the starship >instead of vice versa. >That indeed decreases the track preparation time. It's what I've been trying to explain from my first e-mail here. I'm trying to explain what I had thought was a very obvious idea for sending a deceleration track to the target system. However, this idea is only obvious after making what I thought was a reasonable assumption about the acceleration track. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 9 10:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1324" "Sat" "9" "August" "1997" "12:27:35" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "35" "RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA21480 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 10:30:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA21463 for ; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 10:29:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p33.gnt.com [204.49.68.238]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA16513 for ; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 12:29:55 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA4BF.F1100900@x2p5.gnt.com>; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 12:29:54 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA4BF.F1100900@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1323 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Sat, 9 Aug 1997 12:27:35 -0500 Kelly and/or Timothy, >Kelly wrote: > >>>>>>That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. >>>>>> Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a domed >>>>>>shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). >>>>> >>>>>I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables... >>>> >>>>Anchored to what? Unless the anchor weighs enough it can't 'anchor' the >>>>sail. In the case of fuel/sail, the sail is 400 times heavier. >>> >>>Anchored to the ship. The ship doesn't need to be heavier, it just should >>>want to accelerate less than the sail, which it does as soon as you cut the >>>cables. The link that Timothy just posted to Landis's paper on sails also has other pages which reminded me of something I had quite forgotten. JPL actually designed several sails for a mission to Halley's comet. NONE of them used the "parachute" arrangement with cables attached to a sail. They were just big square kites with steering vanes and a minimal structure. Even the structure may not be necessary though. Suppose the structure was built-in to the sail itself? If part of your fabric contained hollow channels which could be inflated with gas or foam to stiffen the sail, you wouldn't need any structure at all. Payload fraction could go way up or the sail size down. Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 9 10:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["126" "Sat" "9" "August" "1997" "12:29:57" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "6" "" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA21501 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 10:30:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA21490 for ; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 10:30:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p5.gnt.com (x2p33.gnt.com [204.49.68.238]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA16527 for ; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 12:30:01 -0500 Received: by x2p5.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA4BF.F51600E0@x2p5.gnt.com>; Sat, 9 Aug 1997 12:30:01 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA4BF.F51600E0@x2p5.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 125 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Date: Sat, 9 Aug 1997 12:29:57 -0500 Did someone reset the mail server or something? I just got several days worth of old postings for the second time.... Lee From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 10 05:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1438" "Sun" "10" "August" "1997" "07:53:54" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "31" "Re: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA11748 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 05:53:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA11738 for ; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 05:53:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA07717; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 07:53:55 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708101253.AA07717@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCA4BF.F1100900@x2p5.gnt.com> from "L. Parker" at Aug 9, 97 12:27:35 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1437 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Tugs Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 07:53:54 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >The link that Timothy just posted to Landis's paper on sails also has other >pages which reminded me of something I had quite forgotten. JPL actually >designed several sails for a mission to Halley's comet. NONE of them used >the "parachute" arrangement with cables attached to a sail. They were just >big square kites with steering vanes and a minimal structure. Even the >structure may not be necessary though. This is because they were solar sails, so the forces expected to act upon the sail are very very small. Which just couldn't be the case for any practical interstellar laser sail. >Suppose the structure was built-in to the sail itself? If part of your >fabric contained hollow channels which could be inflated with gas or foam >to stiffen the sail, you wouldn't need any structure at all. Payload >fraction could go way up or the sail size down. That would be extra structure. I think large laser sails are more trouble than they're worth, but the most efficient way to stabalize its structure would have to be an active mechanism. Something like many patches which can be rotated up to 90 degrees with micractuators. They'd be able to effectively adjust the transparency of the sail on a local basis. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 10 06:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4788" "Sun" "10" "August" "1997" "15:54:42" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "113" "starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA18439 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 06:59:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA18425 for ; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 06:59:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-009.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wxYXk-000GD3C; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 16:00:28 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4787 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 15:54:42 +0100 Hello Isaac, In order not to loose track of the situation, I left out the rest of you last letter. I will come back to the rest of that letter as soon as we agree about the following. >>>3. The fuel requirements for a given cruise velocity go up roughly >>> linearly, as opposed to exponentially for a fusion drive. > >>With "fusion drive" I assume you mean a design that takes all its fuel with it. >>You have to specify what you mean with fuel: mass or energy >>The energy (not mass) requirements for a selffueled design do not increase >>exponentially, but with a 3th power. > >Actually, the energy _does_ increase exponentially. The amount of >propellant required increases exponentially, so the amount of energy >required also does (because the amount of energy used goes up >linearly with the amount of propellant used). This is well established >in the rocket equation. That is only so if you keep the exhaust velocity constant. You can also keep the mass ratio constant and increase the exhaust velocity. You'll see that by doing that, the cruise velocity increases linearly with exhaust velocity. An increase of exhaust velocity will give you a second power increase in energy. (My 3th power results may be the result of using relativistic calculations which have higher orders) (If you want to see for yourself you can check out http://www1.tip.nl/users/t596675/sd/calc/calc.html) Here are some numbers that are the result of the calculations on that page. The numbers are for a ship of 1 kg (The numbers scale up linearly with the payload mass). Vcruise Total ship mass Energy_needed Exhaust_Velocity 0.1c 4.935 6.99 E14J 0.0629c 0.2c 4.975 2.863E15J 0.1263c 0.3c 5.047 6.710E15J 0.1912c 0.4c 5.158 1.267E16J 0.2582c 0.5c 5.322 2.156E16J 0.3285c 0.6c 5.568 3.49 E16J 0.403 c 0.7c 5.954 5.61 E16J 0.486 c I should note that anything above 0.3c doesn't apply to pure fusion designs, but only for designs that use a more energy rich fuel. >>I'm not so sure that a pellet track uses linearly more fuel if it increases >>its cruising velocity. My guess is that it will be 3th power too. >>Can you show/explain me why you think it will increase linearly? > >Because you do not have to carry the propellant with you. The >amount of thrust you get is still roughly proportional to the >amount of propellant used, although you are right that it will >get more difficult with speed. Due to the way the drive works, >this increase shouldn't be much (mostly because it's not very >efficient at low speeds--the amount of momentum added is limited >by the magnetic fields). You say that I'm right that it will get more difficult with speed. But then you say that is neglectable due to your design. This discussion is not about design inefficiencies. It is about the elementary physics that are involved. Once we agree about that, we can discuss the flaws of specific designs. The trust or force you get is not proportional to the amount of mass used: To accelerate a fast moving mass needs quadratically more energy than accelerating a slow moving mass. If you mean "quadratic" instead of "roughly", then I can agree. But the use of "roughly" in this context would be quite odd. p = Momentum E = Energy Mpellet = Pellet's mass Vrelative = Relative velocity of the pellets dV = Velocity increase of a pellet The momentum gained by a pellet : p=Mpellet*dV Energy needed for that velocity increase: E=0.5*Mpellet*(Vrelative+dV)^2 So for a constant momentum (constant dV), you need quadratically more energy since Vrelative will increase while the ship accelerates. >However, assuming a perfectly ideal accelerator track scheme, >the increase will be with the square of the velocity. In the >ideal situation, the same amount of energy is imparted to each >incoming pellet, so the amount of thrust you get from a pellet >is inversely proportional to its relative velocity. This will >blow up track mass requirements as the square of the desired >cruise velocity. No, in an ideal track you will add as little energy as possible to each unit of mass. That will give you the most momentum per unit of energy. An ideal(=minimum energy requirement) track therefore has unlimited amounts of mass available. p=m*v E=0.5*m*v^2 --> p=SQRT(2*E*m) So the lower the velocity increase of a single pellet, the more momentum per Energy you get. Example: To accelerate 100 kg with 0.1414 m/s I need one Joule 100 kg with 0.1414 m/s has a momentum of 14.14 Ns To accelerate 1000 kg with 0.0447 m/s I also need one Joule 1000 kg with 0.0447 m/s has a momentum of 44.7 Ns Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 10 08:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5132" "Sun" "10" "August" "1997" "10:30:35" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "116" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA28081 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 08:29:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA28072 for ; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 08:29:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA08494; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 10:30:36 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708101530.AA08494@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 10, 97 03:54:42 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5131 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 10:30:35 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Hello Isaac, >In order not to loose track of the situation, I left out the rest of you >last letter. I will come back to the rest of that letter as soon as we agree >about the following. >>>>3. The fuel requirements for a given cruise velocity go up roughly >>>> linearly, as opposed to exponentially for a fusion drive. >>>With "fusion drive" I assume you mean a design that takes all its fuel >with it. >>>You have to specify what you mean with fuel: mass or energy >>>The energy (not mass) requirements for a selffueled design do not increase >>>exponentially, but with a 3th power. >>Actually, the energy _does_ increase exponentially. The amount of >>propellant required increases exponentially, so the amount of energy >>required also does (because the amount of energy used goes up >>linearly with the amount of propellant used). This is well established >>in the rocket equation. >That is only so if you keep the exhaust velocity constant. >You can also keep the mass ratio constant and increase the exhaust velocity. No you can't. Like it or not, there's a top exhaust velocity available just barely acceptable if we're using fusion power. If we assume antimatter production is economical, then almost certainly an antimatter powered rocket of some sort is the best stardrive. There's almost no point in talking about fusion powered options. [...] >I should note that anything above 0.3c doesn't apply to pure fusion designs, >but only for designs that use a more energy rich fuel. Which means antimatter. (Or something even more bizzare, like a black hole.) >>>I'm not so sure that a pellet track uses linearly more fuel if it increases >>>its cruising velocity. My guess is that it will be 3th power too. >>>Can you show/explain me why you think it will increase linearly? >>Because you do not have to carry the propellant with you. The >>amount of thrust you get is still roughly proportional to the >>amount of propellant used, although you are right that it will >>get more difficult with speed. Due to the way the drive works, >>this increase shouldn't be much (mostly because it's not very >>efficient at low speeds--the amount of momentum added is limited >>by the magnetic fields). >You say that I'm right that it will get more difficult with speed. But then >you say that is neglectable due to your design. >This discussion is not about design inefficiencies. It is about the >elementary physics that are involved. Once we agree about that, we can >discuss the flaws of specific designs. You simply can't ignore the realities of particular methods of propulsion. For instance, you can't ignore the fact that without anti-matter power, maximum exhaust velocity is _the_ limiting factor in traditional interstellar rocket designs. Sometimes energy efficiency is the limiting factor (e.g. antimatter rocket or intrasolar fusion rocket). Sometimes acceleration capability is the limiting factor (e.g. solar sails). Sometimes exhaust velocity is the limiting factor (e.g. fission rockets or interstellar fusion rockets). Sometimes its a combination (e.g. laser sail). For instance, it's really pointless in discussing the potential energy efficiency of launching something solid at relativistic velocities via an electromagnetic mass driver because you'd never be able to build one long enough. >The trust or force you get is not proportional to the amount of mass used: >To accelerate a fast moving mass needs quadratically more energy than >accelerating a slow moving mass. This assumes you're using a method of accelerating the mass which is limited by energy input. This ramjet is _not_ limited by how much energy it inputs into the mass stream, because it isn't providing the energy (the pellets themselves provide the fusing energy). It's limited by the strength of its magnetic fields. A ramjet can get more powerful the faster it goes. >>However, assuming a perfectly ideal accelerator track scheme, >>the increase will be with the square of the velocity. In the >>ideal situation, the same amount of energy is imparted to each >>incoming pellet, so the amount of thrust you get from a pellet >>is inversely proportional to its relative velocity. This will >>blow up track mass requirements as the square of the desired >>cruise velocity. >No, in an ideal track you will add as little energy as possible to each unit >of mass. You will add the _same_ amount of energy per pellet. >That will give you the most momentum per unit of energy. >An ideal(=minimum energy requirement) track therefore has unlimited amounts >of mass available. Umm...it takes some energy to create the track in the first place. The amount may vary, but I think a good assumption is that the cost is roughly proportional to the mass of the track. Thus, even if we use your minimum energy requirement (which is invalid in this case), the ideal track will be some finite mass. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 10 16:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3925" "Mon" "11" "August" "1997" "01:45:39" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "95" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA09833 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 16:45:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA09822 for ; Sun, 10 Aug 1997 16:45:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-021.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wxhgV-000FJZC; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 01:46:07 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3924 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 01:45:39 +0100 Hello Isaac, >>That is only so if you keep the exhaust velocity constant. >>You can also keep the mass ratio constant and increase the exhaust velocity. > >No you can't. Like it or not, there's a top exhaust velocity available >just barely acceptable if we're using fusion power. Then we agree. All that I should have added is "for low cruise velocities with a fusion design": For low cruise velocities one needs just as much energy when using the same amount of mass for a ramjet design as for a self-fueled-fusion design. >>I should note that anything above 0.3c doesn't apply to pure fusion designs, >>but only for designs that use a more energy rich fuel. > >Which means antimatter. (Or something even more bizzare, like a black >hole.) Or a partial beamed design... >>You say that I'm right that it will get more difficult with speed. But then >>you say that is neglectable due to your design. >>This discussion is not about design inefficiencies. It is about the >>elementary physics that are involved. Once we agree about that, we can >>discuss the flaws of specific designs. > >You simply can't ignore the realities of particular methods of >propulsion. For instance, you can't ignore the fact that without >anti-matter power, maximum exhaust velocity is _the_ limiting >factor in traditional interstellar rocket designs. I wasn't discussing the realities of a particular method, but of a self-fueled design in general. Now that we cleared things up, I guess we can indeed go to the particular cases. >For instance, it's really pointless in discussing the potential >energy efficiency of launching something solid at relativistic >velocities via an electromagnetic mass driver because you'd >never be able to build one long enough. True, but before you can discard a method, you have to determine what the limits are. I've found that there are few numbers available about the designs we are talking about. To avoid needless calculation I approach the designs in a general way. Then after having looked at the results, I'll discard a particular case. I guess I was put a little bit off balance by your cooked-&-ready approach, just as you probably were by my step-by-step approach. >>The trust or force you get is not proportional to the amount of mass used: >>To accelerate a fast moving mass needs quadratically more energy than >>accelerating a slow moving mass. > >This assumes you're using a method of accelerating the mass which is >limited by energy input. This ramjet is _not_ limited by how much >energy it inputs into the mass stream, because it isn't providing >the energy (the pellets themselves provide the fusing energy). True, the pellets not used as exhaust mass are then more or less used as batteries. >>>However, assuming a perfectly ideal accelerator track scheme, >>>the increase will be with the square of the velocity. In the >>>ideal situation, the same amount of energy is imparted to each >>>incoming pellet, so the amount of thrust you get from a pellet >>>is inversely proportional to its relative velocity. This will >>>blow up track mass requirements as the square of the desired >>>cruise velocity. > >>No, in an ideal track you will add as little energy as possible to each unit >>of mass. > >You will add the _same_ amount of energy per pellet. OK. >>That will give you the most momentum per unit of energy. >>An ideal(=minimum energy requirement) track therefore has unlimited amounts >>of mass available. > >Umm...it takes some energy to create the track in the first place. >The amount may vary, but I think a good assumption is that the >cost is roughly proportional to the mass of the track. > >Thus, even if we use your minimum energy requirement (which is invalid >in this case), the ideal track will be some finite mass. Yes, I was exaggarating a bit. Clearly an infinite amount of mass wouldn't be practical, since you had to pass trough it. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 11 00:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5117" "Mon" "11" "August" "1997" "02:22:55" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "116" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id AAA14881 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 00:22:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id AAA14869 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 00:22:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA18044; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 02:22:56 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708110722.AA18044@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 11, 97 01:45:39 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5116 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 02:22:55 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Hello Isaac, >>>That is only so if you keep the exhaust velocity constant. >>>You can also keep the mass ratio constant and increase the exhaust velocity. >>No you can't. Like it or not, there's a top exhaust velocity available >>just barely acceptable if we're using fusion power. >Then we agree. All that I should have added is "for low cruise velocities >with a fusion design": Okay, assuming you're talking about less than .1c, which is only barely acceptable for a manned interstellar mission in the time frame this mailing list is for (a couple hundred years might not be enough to develop long human lifespans). Above .1c, you have to assume very high exhaust velocity low loss fusion drives for them to be practical at all. >For low cruise velocities one needs just as much energy when using the same >amount of mass for a ramjet design as for a self-fueled-fusion design. Untrue, because at such low cruise velocities it's doubtful a fusion ramjet design will operate at all (without shoving the pellets at it at some high velocity, costing extra energy). However, a chemical pellet ramjet design could work. The energy required is no longer a useful method of comparison because the costs of that energy depends upon the energy source. Also, at these intrasolar speeds, the costs of the fusion drive will likely outweigh its entire lifetime's cost in fuel. [about the rocket equation being used with various exhaust/destination velocities] >>>I should note that anything above 0.3c doesn't apply to pure fusion designs, >>>but only for designs that use a more energy rich fuel. >>Which means antimatter. (Or something even more bizzare, like a black >>hole.) >Or a partial beamed design... Not exactly. Above .3c, you're definitely using an exhaust velocity of .2c or more. At such high exhaust velocities, any beam providing power for that beam will have a large fraction of momentum compared to the exhaust it powers (even assuming on board fusion providing a theoretical maximum boost). That means the rocket equation can't be used with such an externally powered rocket. In the extreme case, external power is provided by laser to a .99+ %c exhaust. In this case, the momentum of the laser light is the same as the momentum provided by the exhaust, assuming 100% efficiency! >>You simply can't ignore the realities of particular methods of >>propulsion. For instance, you can't ignore the fact that without >>anti-matter power, maximum exhaust velocity is _the_ limiting >>factor in traditional interstellar rocket designs. >I wasn't discussing the realities of a particular method, but of a >self-fueled design in general. Now that we cleared things up, I guess we can >indeed go to the particular cases. Unfortunately, the only criteria you discuss, energy consumption, isn't always the driving factor. In fact, it rarely is directly significant, because the cost per energy unit varies so greatly from one source to another (cost and availability are the true important factors). If the only important factor were energy consumption during the starship's flight, then we could just say the ideal interstellar rocket is an antimatter rocket with a propellant/payload mass ratio of 4 with a matter/antimatter ratio appropriate to give an exhaust velocity of 1.2 times the cruising velocity. After all, we can make atoms of antimatter today. So what if it's astronomically expensive to produce per calorie? >>For instance, it's really pointless in discussing the potential >>energy efficiency of launching something solid at relativistic >>velocities via an electromagnetic mass driver because you'd >>never be able to build one long enough. >True, but before you can discard a method, you have to determine what the >limits are. If you'd like, I can rehash my calculations on the potential muzzle velocities and other limitations of mass drivers. The overall conclusions are actually pertinent to this discussion, since EM mass drivers would be used to fire pellets from the fuel packets in my stardrive proposal. >I've found that there are few numbers available about the >designs we are talking about. To avoid needless calculation I approach the >designs in a general way. Then after having looked at the results, I'll >discard a particular case. >I guess I was put a little bit off balance by your cooked-&-ready approach, >just as you probably were by my step-by-step approach. Yes, and me disagreeing with the basic assumptions in your steps isn't helping either. In particular, the basic assumption that you can just look at any exhaust velocity you feel like is one I just can't agree with. When it comes to exhaust velocity, the harshest fact of rocket design is that the limiting factor is _availability_. You can't just wish for a 50,000sec Isp rocket and get it. You have to live with whatever maximum Isp is available (after R&D). -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 11 07:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4124" "Mon" "11" "August" "1997" "16:32:22" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "98" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA29264 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 07:32:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA29242 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 07:32:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-008.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wxvWg-000GrOC; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 16:32:54 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4123 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 16:32:22 +0100 Isaac, >>For low cruise velocities one needs just as much energy when using the same >>amount of mass for a ramjet design as for a self-fueled-fusion design. > >Untrue, because at such low cruise velocities it's doubtful a fusion >ramjet design will operate at all (without shoving the pellets at it >at some high velocity, costing extra energy). However, a chemical >pellet ramjet design could work. The energy required is no longer a >useful method of comparison because the costs of that energy depends >upon the energy source. Sigh, there won't be much room for comparison then. >[about the rocket equation being used with various exhaust/destination >velocities] >>>>I should note that anything above 0.3c doesn't apply to pure fusion designs, >>>>but only for designs that use a more energy rich fuel. > >>>Which means antimatter. (Or something even more bizzare, like a black >>>hole.) > >>Or a partial beamed design... > >Not exactly. I suppose a black hole as stardrive does comply with the rocket equation? >>>You simply can't ignore the realities of particular methods of >>>propulsion. For instance, you can't ignore the fact that without >>>anti-matter power, maximum exhaust velocity is _the_ limiting >>>factor in traditional interstellar rocket designs. > >>I wasn't discussing the realities of a particular method, but of a >>self-fueled design in general. Now that we cleared things up, I guess we can >>indeed go to the particular cases. > >Unfortunately, the only criteria you discuss, energy consumption, >isn't always the driving factor. In fact, it rarely is directly >significant, because the cost per energy unit varies so greatly >from one source to another (cost and availability are the true >important factors). I assumed energy was an important part of the cost. But indeed for fusion designs that may not be true. >>>For instance, it's really pointless in discussing the potential >>>energy efficiency of launching something solid at relativistic >>>velocities via an electromagnetic mass driver because you'd >>>never be able to build one long enough. > >>True, but before you can discard a method, you have to determine what the >>limits are. > >If you'd like, I can rehash my calculations on the potential muzzle >velocities and other limitations of mass drivers. The overall >conclusions are actually pertinent to this discussion, since EM mass >drivers would be used to fire pellets from the fuel packets in my >stardrive proposal. Any numbers with calculations are welcome. What I'm most interested in, is how much mass you will need (and thus how much effort one has to do to put it in a pellet track). >>I've found that there are few numbers available about the >>designs we are talking about. To avoid needless calculation I approach the >>designs in a general way. Then after having looked at the results, I'll >>discard a particular case. >>I guess I was put a little bit off balance by your cooked-&-ready approach, >>just as you probably were by my step-by-step approach. > >Yes, and me disagreeing with the basic assumptions in your steps >isn't helping either. In particular, the basic assumption that >you can just look at any exhaust velocity you feel like is one >I just can't agree with. You can look at anything you like, I didn't suggest that when you look at something that it should become a reality. I suggested that looking at a whole range, instead of a single design will give you a clearer overview about what the actual energy advantages over the whole range are. Sure there are many other things than energy use alone, but one has to address them all. >When it comes to exhaust velocity, the harshest fact of rocket design >is that the limiting factor is _availability_. True, but I wonder, is a ramjet of the size that we need physically possible? It may be so inefficient that the power losses melt it away the instant that it starts to produce 1E16 Watt of power. The same may be true for other designs, I just don't know. For that matter, I don't know that exactly what the availability and cost of the several designs will be. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 11 08:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["920" "Mon" "11" "August" "1997" "09:48:19" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "23" "RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA09140 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 08:11:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA09094 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 08:11:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p43.gnt.com (x2p43.gnt.com [204.49.68.248]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA27285 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 10:11:47 -0500 Received: by x2p43.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA63E.F77A45A0@x2p43.gnt.com>; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 10:11:42 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA63E.F77A45A0@x2p43.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 919 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 09:48:19 -0500 Isaac, > ..think large laser sails are more trouble than they're worth, but > the most efficient way to stabilize its structure would have to > be an active mechanism. Something like many patches which can be > rotated up to 90 degrees with microactuators. They'd be able to > effectively adjust the transparency of the sail on a local basis. That is one of the reasons that I found the mention of dielectric materials so interesting. You could "steer" without any moving parts by simply varying the current supplied to a particular area of the sail to make it more or less transparent. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Let us create vessels and sails adjusted to the heavenly ether, and there will be plenty of people unafraid of the empty wastes. Johannes Kepler, in a letter to Galileo, 1610 From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 12:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["466" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "15:45:22" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "14" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA19642 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:46:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA19517 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:45:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA10227 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:45:22 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970812154504_772494387@emout19.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 465 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:45:22 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/9/97 10:47:53 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >One thing that a lot of people seem to ignore when discussing traditional >fusion rockets is that any fusion rocket with very high Isp will be >_very_ low thrust, because of power requirements. Actually the Bussard Votage compression system I went into seems likely to give 10 to 1 thrust to weigh ratios. Maybe even a couple times that. With Isp in the 1-2 million range. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 12:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5550" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "15:46:11" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "123" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA19986 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:46:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA19966 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:46:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA13949 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:46:11 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970812154501_1409625112@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5549 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:46:11 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/8/97 9:49:36 PM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >Timothy van der Linden wrote: >>Isaac >>You wrote to Kelly: >>>Well, then I guess my idea is more original than I thought. So here is >>>my concept for the acceleration track: > >>>1. An relatively slow moving acceleration track is set up so that >>> somehow a track of small fission/fusion pellets are spaced along >>> a line. (I imagine a string of pellet shooting fuelpacket ships, >>> to minimize the time/distance between firing the pellets and >>> their target pickup points.) > >>If the pellets are slow moving, then what is the use of pellets? >>Catching pellets like this, will not give a significant energy advantage >>over taking the pellets with you (=attached to the starship) from the start. > >The advantages are: > >1. You only have to accelerate the unfueled ship. Well not really. The ship slams into the unaccelerated fuel and has to accelerate it up to most of the ships velicity in order to scoop it into the engines. Otherwise it would blast through the scop mechanism and past the ship before the scoop could shift it inward. >2. You don't have to bend over backwards trying to ignite fusion (since > you're using the pellet's kinetic energy). It's actually _easier_ > to implement a fusion ramjet than it is to implement a onboard > fusion drive. Ah, but that would ignite the fuel during the point of Max acceleration in the system. Which would be when it hits the scoop, not when its in the engine? The fuel would produce nothing but drag. >3. The fuel requirements for a given cruise velocity go up roughly > linearly, as opposed to exponentially for a fusion drive. I am > not even convinced that we will even develop sustained fusion > reactions in the next millenia, given the technical problems > with the high magnetic fields and pressures needed (magnetic > fields are "leaky" and plasma just loves squeezing out and > amplifying those "leaks"). Needless to say, I'm skeptical about > the potential to develop fusion drives, and looking at the designs > envisionned for normal fusion drive starships, I'm _very_ skeptical > that we can hope to acheive any large fraction of the theoretical > maximum Isp. I also doubt magnetic confinement fusion will ever be practical. Certainly the systems the U.S. gov. research group are coming up with suggest that. Thats why I'm using the voltage compression system described by Bussard (and decribed in the web site). You however ARE assuming we can megnetically control ultra hot plasmas. Thats how your scoop/drive system works. Considering the kinetic energy of the fuel to scoop impacts. Holding a stable fusion plasma would seem to be trivial in comparison. >and > >4. The effort involved may be spread over a long period of time. > For the acceleration track, this might not be much of an issue, > because all the time spent setting up the acceleration track > is simply delaying the completion of the mission that much > longer. For the deceleration track, this is a critical bonus > because you can manufacture and send fuel packet drones over > a period of years while the starship is progressing toward > the target system. > >And no, you do not "catch" the pellets in the sense that you brake them >up to the ship's speed. The plasma remains of the pellets blow through >the hollow central core at high speed. It's a ramjet. So the fuel impact would be boosting you forward at the full fource of the fuel stream. The motor then has to counter thrust enough to compensate and still slow down? Remember the scoop can't turn and channel .4c fuel into the ships motors. (Ramjets are not considered very doable anymore.) >>>The idea for the deceleration track? > >>>Same idea, but with the ship turned around 180 degrees. Yes, this >>>implies having some shielding in the back of the ship, but the >>>deceleration run shouldn't last too long. > >>Still you have to launch the pellets many many years in advance. > >No, I assume that all resources prior to launch were devoted to >the acceleration track and the starship itself. > >The deceleration track, which takes longer to set up and requires >much more power, is launched _after_ the starship, at velocities >somewhat higher than the starship's cruise speed to catch up with >it. > >Assuming a mission to Bernard's Star at .5c, these deceleration >track packets drones could be launched over a period of 3 years, >at a maximum velocity of .67c (for the ones launched at the end), >and all arrive at around the same time. Before arriving at the >intercept points, each drone would fire its load of fuel pellets >to arrive in a steady line to meet up with the starship. > >Now, this still requires a pretty heavy set up of RPB emitters >to accelerate the packet drones up to relativistic speeds, >but presumably these same RPB emitters could have been the ones >used to accelerate the starship up to the minimum speed needed >to operate the ramscoop (for the acceleration track). > >The difficulty of launching the packets gets progressively more >difficult as time goes on, because they have to get faster and >faster to catch up with the starship in time. However, this >is perfectly in line with the idea of manufacturing more and >more (and hopefully better) RPB emitters as the mission continues. What is a RPB emitter? All I can think of is relatavistic partical beam emitters, but that doesn't seem to make sence in this context. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 12:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1546" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "15:46:58" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "43" "Re: RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA20398 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:47:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout14.mail.aol.com (emout14.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA20372 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:47:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout14.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA00868 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:46:58 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970812154453_1848995763@emout14.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1545 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:46:58 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/9/97 11:33:38 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly and/or Timothy, > >>Kelly wrote: >> >>>>>>>That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables. >>>>>>> Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a >domed >>>>>>>shaped peice of paper if you prefer.). >>>>>> >>>>>>I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables... >>>>> >>>>>Anchored to what? Unless the anchor weighs enough it can't 'anchor' the >>>>>sail. In the case of fuel/sail, the sail is 400 times heavier. >>>> >>>>Anchored to the ship. The ship doesn't need to be heavier, it just should >>>>want to accelerate less than the sail, which it does as soon as you cut >the >>>>cables. > >The link that Timothy just posted to Landis's paper on sails also has other >pages which reminded me of something I had quite forgotten. JPL actually >designed several sails for a mission to Halley's comet. NONE of them used >the "parachute" arrangement with cables attached to a sail. They were just >big square kites with steering vanes and a minimal structure. Even the >structure may not be necessary though. > >Suppose the structure was built-in to the sail itself? If part of your >fabric contained hollow channels which could be inflated with gas or foam >to stiffen the sail, you wouldn't need any structure at all. Payload >fraction could go way up or the sail size down. > >Lee Parker True, but they were also assuming trivial thrust/acceleration loads and rates. We definatly arn't. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 12:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["818" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "15:47:37" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "26" "Re: RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA20662 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:48:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout16.mail.aol.com (emout16.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.42]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA20649 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:48:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA20296 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:47:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970812154456_1284502835@emout16.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 817 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:47:37 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/11/97 9:14:24 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Isaac, > >> ..think large laser sails are more trouble than they're worth, but >> the most efficient way to stabilize its structure would have to >> be an active mechanism. Something like many patches which can be >> rotated up to 90 degrees with microactuators. They'd be able to >> effectively adjust the transparency of the sail on a local basis. > >That is one of the reasons that I found the mention of dielectric materials >so interesting. You could "steer" without any moving parts by simply varying >the current supplied to a particular area of the sail to make it more or >less transparent. > >Lee That could be a very good idea! But would that up the power or weight requirements of the sail system to much? Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 12:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["6875" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "15:47:43" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "144" "Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA20773 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:48:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout02.mail.aol.com (emout02.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.93]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA20730 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:48:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout02.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA10988; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:47:43 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970812154510_597631155@emout02.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 6874 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:47:43 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/8/97 8:41:56 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/7/97 5:22:11 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: > >>>I guess we're not seeing eye to eye. As I see it, the purpose >>>of the acceleration and deceleration tracks is to provide >>>thrust in a way similar to the RAIR concept. The serious problem >>>with the RAIR concept is that interstellar hydrogen just isn't >>>dense enough. The fuel pellets are supposed to remedy this >>>(so ignore all that interstellar hydrogen). > >>>These pellets are _supposed_ to get scooped up at very high speeds. >>>In fact, the ramjet depends upon the high speed "impact" with the >>>magnetic fields (and possibly on board lithium stores) in order to >>>ignite the pellets without ever braking them to the ship's speed. > >>That wasn't part of the idea for this. Especially if you are doing 30%-40% >>of lightspeed. You'ld shread the frount of the ship. > >Well, then I guess my idea is more original than I thought. So here is >my concept for the acceleration track: > >1. An relatively slow moving acceleration track is set up so that > somehow a track of small fission/fusion pellets are spaced along > a line. (I imagine a string of pellet shooting fuelpacket ships, > to minimize the time/distance between firing the pellets and > their target pickup points.) > >2. The starship is a ramjet design, with a powerful magnetic ramscoop > in the front, a hollow cylinder hull for the main body, and a > magnetic rocket nozzle in the rear. > >3. Fuel pellets are scooped up by the magnetic ramscoop and fused. > When they first encounter the magnetic field of the first coils > (which may extend far forward of the ship), inducted electric > currents instantly plasmatize them. Then the pinching effect > of the converging magnetic field lines compress these pellets > as they are funnelled through the hollow central core of the > ship. This compression further heats the pellet and provides > the inertial confinement for fusion. At high speeds, it may > even initiate fusion, but at lower speeds impacting with lithium > or boron from on board stores may be needed. > >4. The fusion reaction ideally takes place beyond the main body of > the ship within the magnetic rocket nozzle in the rear. This > nozzle directs the products backwards with a somewhat higher > velocity than they entered with, thus producing thrust. This is a complicated system using technology (the magnetic scoops, mag thruster external to the ship, interstellar fuel targeting, etc..) we can't figure out how to design, or feel is unlikely to work. So we went for the lighter and more compact laser fuel launcher system. For example. If you hit the fuel at high speed, the magnetic scoops probably couldn't efect it fast enough to scoop it in and fuse it. (It would blow past before the mag fields could ionize it, and be past the ship before it fuses.) The scoop systems are very large and heavy and require huge amounts of power to work. Then they cause a lot of drag the motor needs to overcome. >As you can see, the pellets don't hit the front of the ship, and >the ship actually _depends_ upon them entering at a high enough >velocity. > >The idea for the deceleration track? > >Same idea, but with the ship turned around 180 degrees. Yes, this >implies having some shielding in the back of the ship, but the >deceleration run shouldn't last too long. The decel run would last for months. >>>>>If you can tackle the problem of the acceleration track, the >>>>>deceleration track shouldn't be a problem. > >>>This presumes the ability to "shoot" fuel pellets or packets at >>>relativistic speeds in a very short time frame (about half the >>>total time of the acceleration run). This requires a _lot_ of >>>power--maybe even more power than using a laser sail to propel the >>>target ship (which is less efficient, but can be spread out over >>>practically the entire time of the acceleration run). > >>Thats possible. Actually its likely to be more since the fuel launchers >>probably would be as efficent as a microwave beam source. > >The fuel launchers would be as efficient? I can't imagine how, assuming >you want muzzle velocities greater than 1,000km/s. Sorry. I ment to say they probably wouldn't be as efficent. >If you want a muzzle velocity of 10,000km/s or more, I doubt you can >make an electromagnetic accelerator long enough to not melt and vaporize >your pellets before they even reach the muzzle. In order for the pellet >to not absorb some percentage of the energy being used to accelerate >it, it would have to be superconducting--but that puts a limit on how >strong the magnetic fields can be! Since the length needed is >proportional to the square of the muzzle velocity... Yeah, had to give up on electromagnetioc fuel launchers. The luancher would need to be to huge. So I went to the multi stage laser launcher system described. That would also lean toward fewer big launches, rather then lots of little fuel pellets. >That leaves accelerating pellets by laser sail or RPB magsail. Of >the two, RPB magsail is more efficient (and has the added bonus of >eliminating the problem of heating up the sail), but it's still >not very efficient (compared to an EM mass driver). If your going to launch the fuel with a sail, you might as well add it to the ship like in my Fuel/Sail system. Other wise your launching multiple vessels for no advantage, and extra complexity. >>However this is talking about the accel track. In the decel track its >>irrelavent since you can't catch fuel runing faster then you. > >You turn the ship around 180 degrees. I thought that was obvious, >but I guess it requires pointing out. You expect to be ramed from behind by fuel doing from zero up to .4 c relative velocity? This isn't the way 'scooping' is normally described. Thou it would get around the problem described. On the other hand since the fuel would all hit it going .4c (or whatever the cruse speed is) absolute. It seems to offer no advantages. Assuming you fired the fuel accurately enough to hit the ship (assuming it never had to move, and the fuel stream never hit anything on route), why not pick it up on route and store it onboard? This would be simpler and less chalenging then scooping. Also a LOT safering during the decel. The high sped impacts would prevent scooping, and probably trash the ship. This would leed to another configuration by the way. If fuel is fired at the ship as it leaves Sol, and the ship catches it magnetically. Then the ship could be 'boosted' by the act of catching the fuel. Effectivly it is using a odd magnetic partical sail to accelerate. It then holds the fuel for deceleration. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 12:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["245" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "15:48:08" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "16" "Re: RE: starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA20861 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:48:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA20842 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:48:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id PAA11446 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:48:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970812154449_1916097971@emout13.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 244 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:48:08 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/8/97 6:30:02 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Zenon, > >> (expect tanks with kilograms of antimatter hauled over interstate >> highways ... ;-)) 8( !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT ON MY PLANET!! ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 13:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["458" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "16:16:57" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "24" "Re: starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA01055 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 13:16:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA01040 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 13:16:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id QhJ13944; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:14:51 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970812.161657.3486.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970812154449_1916097971@emout13.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-18,20-22 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 457 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:16:57 -0400 On Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:48:08 -0400 (EDT) KellySt@aol.com writes: > >In a message dated 8/8/97 6:30:02 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. >Parker) >wrote: > >>Zenon, >> >>> (expect tanks with kilograms of antimatter hauled over interstate >>> highways ... ;-)) > > > 8( !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT ON MY PLANET!! > > ;) > >Kelly > Actually, the antimatter produced for PSU's project is only measured in nanograms, used to catalyze fiss/fusion reactions. Jim From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 14:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2081" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "16:08:14" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "44" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA21852 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 14:07:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id OAA21804 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 14:07:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA28304; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:08:14 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708122108.AA28304@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970812154504_772494387@emout19.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 12, 97 03:45:22 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2080 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: KellySt@aol.com Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:08:14 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/9/97 10:47:53 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>One thing that a lot of people seem to ignore when discussing traditional >>fusion rockets is that any fusion rocket with very high Isp will be >>_very_ low thrust, because of power requirements. >Actually the Bussard Votage compression system I went into seems likely to >give 10 to 1 thrust to weigh ratios. Maybe even a couple times that. With >Isp in the 1-2 million range. Well, I make a flat assumption that outside of special circumstances, the waste heat pumped into the ship itself will be a significant percentage of the energy going into the exhaust. (Special circumstances would include isolation from the exhaust and its power source by superconducting coils. Superconductors are inherently capable of doing certain things with seemingly magical 100% efficiency.) Assuming a .1% percentage, a rocket with a 10:1 thrust/weight ratio and 1 millions sec Isp would be absorbing 10^12 watts/kg in waste heat. Without massive heat rejection systems (which would adversely affect the thrust/weight ratio), that's going to melt the rocket in a fraction of a second. Therefore I don't consider the Bussard Votage compressions system to truly offer a plausible chance at such high thrust/weight ratios, considering how various components are directly impacted by fusion products (thus implying a significant waste heat problem). As for the efficacy of electric field containment for fusion power, I'll admit I haven't read the reference articles on this compressions system, but it seems very optimistic to assume it will even work well enough to break even, much less provide power. When fusion power is acheived, by any method, I'll gladly cheer if I live long enough to see it. But until then, it seems like the more we learn, the more we learn that it's not so easy. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 14:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["481" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "14:48:37" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "20" "Re: starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA22140 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 14:08:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA22119 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 14:08:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-76.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-108.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.108]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA00096 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:48:53 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33F0DA23.2248@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <970812154449_1916097971@emout13.mail.aol.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 480 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 14:48:37 -0700 KellySt@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 8/8/97 6:30:02 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) > wrote: > > >Zenon, > > > >> (expect tanks with kilograms of antimatter hauled over interstate > >> highways ... ;-)) > > 8( !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT ON MY PLANET!! Send them to me! I'll handle storage. I charge by the microgram. (I think thats a fair deal when sitting next to a large explosion ready to happen) Kyle Mcallister "I don't want the world...just your half" From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 14:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["6573" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "16:53:03" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "136" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA09463 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 14:52:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id OAA09406 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 14:52:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA29457; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:53:04 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708122153.AA29457@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970812154501_1409625112@emout18.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 12, 97 03:46:11 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 6572 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: KellySt@aol.com Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:53:03 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/8/97 9:49:36 PM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>Timothy van der Linden wrote: >>>If the pellets are slow moving, then what is the use of pellets? >>>Catching pellets like this, will not give a significant energy advantage >>>over taking the pellets with you (=attached to the starship) from the >start. >>The advantages are: >>1. You only have to accelerate the unfueled ship. >Well not really. The ship slams into the unaccelerated fuel and has to >accelerate it up to most of the ships velicity in order to scoop it into the >engines. Otherwise it would blast through the scop mechanism and past the >ship before the scoop could shift it inward. First off, I'm going to view this in terms of the inertial frame of the ship. Thus, the ship has no kinetic energy but the incoming pellets have a lot of kinetic energy. When the fuel first hits the magnetic field, induced electric fields would heat it up and turn it into plasma. For the most part, this energy is lost forever (because the effective expansion ratio of the magnetic rocket nozzle won't cool the exhaust down to such a low tempurature). However, once broken down into charged particles, the plasma can be directed with the magnetic fields in an energy conservative way. The electrons in a TV travel at around .75 c, and yet TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they are wide. You could do the same thing with protons with magnetic fields only a 1000 times stronger than a TV CRT's. So the individual particles will continue to travel at the same speed that they entered the magnetic fields at (despite having their path radically bent). The challenge is to direct all these particles rearward with the magnetic rocket nozzle. Here's really where the losses can really creep in if the nozzle isn't designed just right. All the kinetic energy of each particle is still there (magnetic fields are conservative), but the nozzle has to direct the particles in the rearward direction. >>2. You don't have to bend over backwards trying to ignite fusion (since >> you're using the pellet's kinetic energy). It's actually _easier_ >> to implement a fusion ramjet than it is to implement a onboard >> fusion drive. >Ah, but that would ignite the fuel during the point of Max acceleration in >the system. Which would be when it hits the scoop, not when its in the >engine? The fuel would produce nothing but drag. No it wouldn't. Acceleration isn't the same thing as compression. A magnetic field affects charged particles by making them tend to follow the field lines (actually, they make a helical path around a field line). Thus, compression is caused where field lines get closer together. A ramscoop design uses several coils to generate a magnetic field with field lines converging toward the center. This has the inevitable effect of compressing whatever it scoops up in the center. >I also doubt magnetic confinement fusion will ever be practical. Certainly >the systems the U.S. gov. research group are coming up with suggest that. > Thats why I'm using the voltage compression system described by Bussard (and >decribed in the web site). You however ARE assuming we can megnetically >control ultra hot plasmas. Thats how your scoop/drive system works. I assume we can magnetically control ultra hot plasmas because we _can_ and _do_ control ultra hot plasmas. Demonstrating fusion in a magnetic confinement research reactor like Tokomak is routine. Demonstrating _sustained_ fusion isn't (obviously). That's why I'm so much more optomistic about pulsed fusion. Anyway, magnetic confinement is a very mature technology, thanks to millions upon millions of dollars worth of research over the last several decades. At least we're already familiar with it and its technical pitfalls. >>The deceleration track, which takes longer to set up and requires >>much more power, is launched _after_ the starship, at velocities >>somewhat higher than the starship's cruise speed to catch up with >>it. >>Assuming a mission to Bernard's Star at .5c, these deceleration >>track packets drones could be launched over a period of 3 years, >>at a maximum velocity of .67c (for the ones launched at the end), >>and all arrive at around the same time. Before arriving at the >>intercept points, each drone would fire its load of fuel pellets >>to arrive in a steady line to meet up with the starship. >>Now, this still requires a pretty heavy set up of RPB emitters >>to accelerate the packet drones up to relativistic speeds, >>but presumably these same RPB emitters could have been the ones >>used to accelerate the starship up to the minimum speed needed >>to operate the ramscoop (for the acceleration track). >>The difficulty of launching the packets gets progressively more >>difficult as time goes on, because they have to get faster and >>faster to catch up with the starship in time. However, this >>is perfectly in line with the idea of manufacturing more and >>more (and hopefully better) RPB emitters as the mission continues. >What is a RPB emitter? All I can think of is relatavistic partical beam >emitters, but that doesn't seem to make sence in this context. That's what I'm talking about. The individual packet drones are launched to relativistic speeds using RPB propelled magsails. The two big advantages a magsail has over a laser sail are: 1. Significantly better potential energy efficiency. 2. No waste heat rejection problem (a superconducting magsail doesn't absorb a significant amount of energy from the particle stream, while a laser sail will absorb a significant percentage of energy from the laser). The big disadvantage of a magsail is that it's a lot harder to focus a particle beam over a long distance than it is to focus a laser. I get around this problem by assuming there is a string of RPB emitters along the acceleration run, each one only responsible for a relatively short length of the acceleration run. This is obviously very wasteful for a single launch, but makes sense if you have to launch a whole bunch of vessels one after another. The deceleration track will require a lot of mass in fuel packet drones--probably a _lot_ more total mass than the starship itself. However, they are launched over an extended period of time with that string of RPB emitters. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 16:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3447" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "18:12:40" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "84" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA11221 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:12:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA11192 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:11:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA01089; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:12:40 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708122312.AA01089@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 11, 97 04:32:22 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3446 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:12:40 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Isaac, >>>>>I should note that anything above 0.3c doesn't apply to pure >>>>>fusion designs, but only for designs that use a more energy >>>>>rich fuel. >>>>Which means antimatter. (Or something even more bizzare, like a black >>>>hole.) >>>Or a partial beamed design... >>Not exactly. >I suppose a black hole as stardrive does comply with the rocket equation? Well, it would be bizarre, but you could theoretically build a "rocket" around a black hole. For instance, it could be a large sphere with a hole. It absorbs Hawking radiation from the black hole, except for that hole (which is where thrust comes from). This black hole is kept from evaporating away by feeding it extra mass from the fuel storage. A really bizzare starship, considering how much better it would be to just use the black hole as a highly effective anti-matter producer (in a fixed anti-matter factory). >>If you'd like, I can rehash my calculations on the potential muzzle >>velocities and other limitations of mass drivers. The overall >>conclusions are actually pertinent to this discussion, since EM mass >>drivers would be used to fire pellets from the fuel packets in my >>stardrive proposal. >Any numbers with calculations are welcome. What I'm most interested in, is >how much mass you will need (and thus how much effort one has to do to put >it in a pellet track). I should recalculate things and type them up on my web page. Anyway, the important factor to keep in mind is that for any useful muzzle velocity, the acceleration occurs essentially instantly for purposes of rejecting waste heat. For a pellet launcher meant to fire frozen DT pellets, this would seem to be disastrous. The solution, as I see it, is to use a "pusher plate" of plasma pushing a frozen DT sabot which sacrificially melts, leaving a core frozen pellet which leaves the muzzle. Beyond the muzzle is a cylinder which looks a little like a large gun silencer. It is rotating quickly and has a series of conical baffles; its only openning is through the center, which the frozen pellet passes through. Gas pressure expansion forces most of the waste gas into the conical baffles, where centrifugal "force" funnels the gas to reclaimation pumps along the outer surface of the cylinder. Thus, most of the pusher plate and plasma material can be recycled. >>When it comes to exhaust velocity, the harshest fact of rocket design >>is that the limiting factor is _availability_. >True, but I wonder, is a ramjet of the size that we need physically >possible? This ramjet isn't supposed to scrounge around for interstellar hydrogen, so its diameter is determined by how accurate the pellet tracks can be laid and followed. >It may be so inefficient that the power losses melt it away the >instant that it starts to produce 1E16 Watt of power. The coolest thing about ramjets is that using superconducting coils and an aneutronic fusion reaction _no_ waste heat is absorbed by the starship. Superconductors aren't just almost lossless, they are _entirely_ lossless. >The same may be true for other designs, I just don't know. For that matter, >I don't know that exactly what the availability and cost of the several >designs will be. No one knows. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 16:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5608" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "18:19:37" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "118" "Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA14290 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:18:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA14241 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:18:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA01235; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:19:38 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708122319.AA01235@bit.csc.lsu.edu> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5607 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Decelerating a Starship Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:19:37 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/8/97 8:41:56 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>Well, then I guess my idea is more original than I thought. So here is >>my concept for the acceleration track: >>1. An relatively slow moving acceleration track is set up so that >>2. The starship is a ramjet design, with a powerful magnetic ramscoop >>3. Fuel pellets are scooped up by the magnetic ramscoop and fused. >>4. The fusion reaction ideally takes place beyond the main body of >> the ship within the magnetic rocket nozzle in the rear. This >This is a complicated system using technology (the magnetic scoops, mag >thruster external to the ship, interstellar fuel targeting, etc..) we can't >figure out how to design, or feel is unlikely to work. So we went for the >lighter and more compact laser fuel launcher system. The magnetic scoop isn't particularly mysterious technology, nor is magnetically confined pulsed fusion. Building a magnetic scoop expansive enough to scrounge up interstellar hydrogen is dubious, but we have plenty of experience with manipulating high energy plasma and even higher energy particle streams with magnetic fields. I'd say most of the aspects of my proposal are a lot more implemented and researched than high power lasers. The "interstellar fuel targetting" problem is not intrinsicly much more difficult than the Voyager missions. The fuel packets being launched are drones with a pellet shooter which could account for a great deal of error, and during their launch acceleration run, course corrections could send them on a very precise path. (Assuming a 100 gee launch to .33c, that still gives 100,000 seconds for course corrections over a length of 33,000 light seconds. If continual course corrections can keep the drone within 1m, it will be less than 10km off course by the time it reaches Bernard's Star.) One of the biggest hurdle for my proposal is the development of RPB propulsion for the fuel packets. As should be pretty obvious, this technology would be suitable for an unmanned flyby interstellar mission. I expect that long before any manned interstellar mission could be taken seriously, unmanned flyby probes would be developed and launched. In the process, a lot of the technical problems with large powerful superconducting magsails could be solved, which would provide extra experience for the design of a magscoop. The relatively recent public failure of the tether experiments shows how far we have to go before making practical magsails, but these first steps are a lot further than any solar sails (much less laser sails). >>As you can see, the pellets don't hit the front of the ship, and >>the ship actually _depends_ upon them entering at a high enough >>velocity. >>The idea for the deceleration track? >>Same idea, but with the ship turned around 180 degrees. Yes, this >>implies having some shielding in the back of the ship, but the >>deceleration run shouldn't last too long. >The decel run would last for months. Yes, probably so. However, during this run the ship will be decelerating, and it has it's easiest time decelerating early on. The amount of rear shielding could be much less than the forward shielding. >>That leaves accelerating pellets by laser sail or RPB magsail. Of >>the two, RPB magsail is more efficient (and has the added bonus of >>eliminating the problem of heating up the sail), but it's still >>not very efficient (compared to an EM mass driver). >If your going to launch the fuel with a sail, you might as well add it to the >ship like in my Fuel/Sail system. Other wise your launching multiple vessels >for no advantage, and extra complexity. The biggest advantage to launching multiple vessels is that the amount of power needed in the launching beams is reduced. For instance, given the choice between 1 launch requiring a 600 TW beam or 100 launches requiring a 6 TW beam, the latter looks pretty good. >>>However this is talking about the accel track. In the decel track its >>>irrelavent since you can't catch fuel runing faster then you. >>You turn the ship around 180 degrees. I thought that was obvious, >>but I guess it requires pointing out. >You expect to be ramed from behind by fuel doing from zero up to .4 c >relative velocity? This isn't the way 'scooping' is normally described. Well, the track is heading towards you from "behind". How else would you scoop it? > Thou it would get around the problem described. On the other hand since the >fuel would all hit it going .4c (or whatever the cruse speed is) absolute. > It seems to offer no advantages. Assuming you fired the fuel accurately >enough to hit the ship (assuming it never had to move, and the fuel stream >never hit anything on route), why not pick it up on route and store it >onboard? Because then you'd have to use it somehow with a normal rocket, and I make the assumption that a normal fusion rocket isn't practical. If it were, then it would be an ideal candidate for the acceleration run, wouldn't it? My proposal only makes sense if no traditional rocket available has sufficient Isp for the deceleration run. If some traditional rocket _does_ have sufficient Isp for the deceleration run, then it also has sufficient Isp for the acceleration run! (You can use en route refueling to overcome the problem of squaring your fueled/unfueled mass ratio.) -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 18:19 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["431" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "19:04:24" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "15" "RE: RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA26084 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:19:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA26021 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:19:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p43.gnt.com (x2p30.gnt.com [204.49.68.235]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA06512 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 20:19:45 -0500 Received: by x2p43.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA75D.0B111FC0@x2p43.gnt.com>; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 20:19:31 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA75D.0B111FC0@x2p43.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 430 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:04:24 -0500 Kelly, > That could be a very good idea! But would that up the power or weight > requirements of the sail system to much? Well, yes and no. The dielectrics had much lower reflectivity, on the order of 87 percent which means they were much less efficient to start with than what we had wanted. But dielectrics only use milliwatts to control the reflectivity, negligible amounts of power as far as we are concerened. Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 18:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["354" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "19:08:07" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "10" "RE: RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA26525 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:20:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA26472 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:20:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p43.gnt.com (x2p30.gnt.com [204.49.68.235]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA06554 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 20:20:08 -0500 Received: by x2p43.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA75D.1A968340@x2p43.gnt.com>; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 20:19:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA75D.1A968340@x2p43.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id SAA26481 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 353 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:08:07 -0500 Kelly, > True, but they were also assuming trivial thrust/acceleration loads and > rates. We definatly arn't. Its been so long, I don't remember what loads they were assuming. For low mass payloads such as Starwisp, it shouldn't matter. High mass payloads (which we have already deemed impractical) would probably shred the support structure. Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 12 18:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["159" "Tue" "12" "August" "1997" "19:10:01" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "12" "RE: RE: starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA26946 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:20:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA26897 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:20:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p43.gnt.com (x2p30.gnt.com [204.49.68.235]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA06596 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 20:20:28 -0500 Received: by x2p43.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA75D.26560520@x2p43.gnt.com>; Tue, 12 Aug 1997 20:20:17 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA75D.26560520@x2p43.gnt.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 158 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:10:01 -0500 Kelly, > 8( !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT ON MY PLANET!! > > ;) While they are at it, have a cargo of black holes I need transported to Chicago... Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 08:43 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1362" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "01:27:48" "-0500" "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" "hous0042@tc.umn.edu" nil "38" "starship-design: Web sites" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA12715 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 08:43:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA12702 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 08:43:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pub-24-a-134.dialup.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Wed, 13 Aug 97 01:35:13 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33F153E4.2324@tc.umn.edu> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1361 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Sender: owner-starship-design To: Starship design group Subject: starship-design: Web sites Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 01:27:48 -0500 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > Aaagh, > > Why do more than half of the links on SD-urlybird not work? > > Like: Newsletters, Computer Services, Reference library > > Whoaa, Sunsite has the same problems. > > (And Steve's site is as usual quite slow or not accesable (at least from the NL) > > This is bad advertisement guys... Site like that usually make me leave > faster than I came. > > Timothy Sorry to take so long to get back on this, I am very busy with two other clients, but starting Sept. 1st I will begin cleaning up and re-doing parts of http://www.urly-bird.com/LIT/ I hope to add a searchable mail archive, and a message board. but first order is getting the links all connected. One thing I think we should do for sure is make a FAQ. I keep seeing the same letters every time we get a new member. The same explanations. I also think we need to have a vote on what technologies and physics are acceptable (or maybe just have a separate message board. hmmm...) Not to come down hard on any particular members, but "This might work / That'll never work" arguments are not very productive. -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 08:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2141" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "17:53:58" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "49" "starship-design: Fusion" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA16542 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 08:53:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA16521 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 08:53:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-001.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wyfkm-000GapC; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:54:32 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2140 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Fusion Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:53:58 +0100 Hello Isaac, This is the rest of the previously "abandoned" letter about a pellet track. >>>2. You don't have to bend over backwards trying to ignite fusion (since >>> you're using the pellet's kinetic energy). It's actually _easier_ >>> to implement a fusion ramjet than it is to implement a onboard >>> fusion drive. > >>Why is it easier? > >Because in order to initiate fusion, you need high temperature and >pressure. In a traditional pulsed fusion rocket design, this is >achieved with either very powerful lasers and/or a fission reaction. OK, actually I ment to ask why is it easier than continous MCF fusion. But you already answered that: >In a traditional continuous fusion rocket design, you need magnetic >confinement, but you can't use superconductors because the field >strengths needed are too high. Thus, the confinement will be >leaky--but this is sort of okay because you'll use the leaks for >the thrust. However, those leaks mean a drain on the energy in >the system, and if it's too leaky then you don't have the energy >to sustain fusion. So far we haven't solved that problem but >let's suppose we have. That _still_ leaves the problem of the >big heavy non superconducting magnetic coils needed to confine >the fusion reaction. But what about these 1 second sustained fusion reports we've heard about? Did they fail because they are too leaky? >The ramjet design is essentially a pulsed fusion rocket design. >The big difference is that it uses the kinetic energy of the >incoming pellets to provide the energy to initiate fusion. >Conveniently enough, this power is directly "generated" within >the pellet itself, so no equipment at all is needed to get the >energy where it's needed! The ship still needs powerful magnetic >coils to provide confinement, but these only need to be powerful >enough to handle pulsed fusion (like the laser confinement pulsed >scheme), and don't need the strength to sustain the pressure >and concentration needed for sustained fusion. But if a super conducting magnet is strong enough for pulsed fusion, why isn't it strong enough for sustained fusion? Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 09:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5009" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "16:10:42" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "105" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA25625 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:13:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA25607 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:13:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-008.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wye8r-000GSZC; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 16:11:17 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 5008 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 16:10:42 +0100 Isaac, >>I suppose a black hole as stardrive does comply with the rocket equation? > >Well, it would be bizarre, but you could theoretically build a >"rocket" around a black hole. For instance, it could be a large >sphere with a hole. It absorbs Hawking radiation from the black >hole, except for that hole (which is where thrust comes from). >This black hole is kept from evaporating away by feeding it extra >mass from the fuel storage. > >A really bizzare starship, considering how much better it would be >to just use the black hole as a highly effective anti-matter producer >(in a fixed anti-matter factory). Hmmm yes, I guess as long as you are a selfsufficient ship, you will comply with the rocket equation. I doubt though that you can get enough antimatter for these high exhaust velocities. Likely you have to feed much more matter to the blackhole than that you will get antimatter in return. Your energy/mass ratio may be worse then for a chemical fuel. >>>If you'd like, I can rehash my calculations on the potential muzzle >>>velocities and other limitations of mass drivers. The overall >>>conclusions are actually pertinent to this discussion, since EM mass >>>drivers would be used to fire pellets from the fuel packets in my >>>stardrive proposal. > >>Any numbers with calculations are welcome. What I'm most interested in, is >>how much mass you will need (and thus how much effort one has to do to put >>it in a pellet track). > >I should recalculate things and type them up on my web page. >Anyway, the important factor to keep in mind is that for any >useful muzzle velocity, the acceleration occurs essentially >instantly for purposes of rejecting waste heat. > >For a pellet launcher meant to fire frozen DT pellets, this >would seem to be disastrous. The solution, as I see it, is >to use a "pusher plate" of plasma pushing a frozen DT sabot >which sacrificially melts, leaving a core frozen pellet which >leaves the muzzle. Beyond the muzzle is a cylinder which >looks a little like a large gun silencer. It is rotating >quickly and has a series of conical baffles; its only openning >is through the center, which the frozen pellet passes through. >Gas pressure expansion forces most of the waste gas into the >conical baffles, where centrifugal "force" funnels the gas to >reclaimation pumps along the outer surface of the cylinder. >Thus, most of the pusher plate and plasma material can be >recycled. You say the gun silencer has series of conical baffles, but you don't mention how these baffles are attached to the "silencer". You suggest the acceleration of a pellet happens almost instantaniously by some plasma expansion. I wonder, won't the launcer blow apart? >>>When it comes to exhaust velocity, the harshest fact of rocket design >>>is that the limiting factor is _availability_. > >>True, but I wonder, is a ramjet of the size that we need physically >>possible? > >This ramjet isn't supposed to scrounge around for interstellar >hydrogen, so its diameter is determined by how accurate the >pellet tracks can be laid and followed. To Kelly you wrote "TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they are wide", you already noted that protons need 1000 times more energy. I think that the amount of protons/electrons will make a difference too. A TV has to move around less than picograms of matter, compared to the kilograms that we need. That's a difference of rougly 15 magnitudes. Luckely, we won't have to supply that power since the particles will give back their energy as soon as they leave the magnet. The fieldstrength should not alter too much when the particles fly through the field of the superconducting magnets. >>It may be so inefficient that the power losses melt it away the >>instant that it starts to produce 1E16 Watt of power. > >The coolest thing about ramjets is that using superconducting >coils and an aneutronic fusion reaction _no_ waste heat is >absorbed by the starship. Superconductors aren't just almost >lossless, they are _entirely_ lossless. OK, the magnets aren't giving losses, but isn't there still a lot of uncontrolable heat from the thermal radiation from the hot particles? A more practical question: How are the superconducting magnets kept from blowing up? The charged particles that fly trough the magnets will create a magnetic flux. Normally as long as the particle flies trough without velocity gain, the superconducting magnets will have the same current before and after the particle flew trough. But in the ramjet design the particles will exit faster than they arived and thus will leave a non-zero flux. I do know little about how superconductors are given a current and a magnetic field, so the above question is more likely a result of not knowing then of doubting the design. Timothy P.S. If you reply, would you mind not to "reply to all"? As a default you will reply to the author and to Starship Design. The result is that the person you reply to will get your message in duplicate. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 09:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["5213" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "18:34:13" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" "" "110" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA02661 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:34:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA02638 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:34:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-001.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wygNi-000GeJC; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 18:34:46 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 5212 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 18:34:13 +0100 Hmmm, I sent this letter 2 hours ago, but didn't receive a copy from SD yet. If anyone else got this letter already, then you can throw away this one because it is identical except for these sentences. Isaac, >>I suppose a black hole as stardrive does comply with the rocket equation? > >Well, it would be bizarre, but you could theoretically build a >"rocket" around a black hole. For instance, it could be a large >sphere with a hole. It absorbs Hawking radiation from the black >hole, except for that hole (which is where thrust comes from). >This black hole is kept from evaporating away by feeding it extra >mass from the fuel storage. > >A really bizzare starship, considering how much better it would be >to just use the black hole as a highly effective anti-matter producer >(in a fixed anti-matter factory). Hmmm yes, I guess as long as you are a selfsufficient ship, you will comply with the rocket equation. I doubt though that you can get enough antimatter for these high exhaust velocities. Likely you have to feed much more matter to the blackhole than that you will get antimatter in return. Your energy/mass ratio may be worse then for a chemical fuel. >>>If you'd like, I can rehash my calculations on the potential muzzle >>>velocities and other limitations of mass drivers. The overall >>>conclusions are actually pertinent to this discussion, since EM mass >>>drivers would be used to fire pellets from the fuel packets in my >>>stardrive proposal. > >>Any numbers with calculations are welcome. What I'm most interested in, is >>how much mass you will need (and thus how much effort one has to do to put >>it in a pellet track). > >I should recalculate things and type them up on my web page. >Anyway, the important factor to keep in mind is that for any >useful muzzle velocity, the acceleration occurs essentially >instantly for purposes of rejecting waste heat. > >For a pellet launcher meant to fire frozen DT pellets, this >would seem to be disastrous. The solution, as I see it, is >to use a "pusher plate" of plasma pushing a frozen DT sabot >which sacrificially melts, leaving a core frozen pellet which >leaves the muzzle. Beyond the muzzle is a cylinder which >looks a little like a large gun silencer. It is rotating >quickly and has a series of conical baffles; its only openning >is through the center, which the frozen pellet passes through. >Gas pressure expansion forces most of the waste gas into the >conical baffles, where centrifugal "force" funnels the gas to >reclaimation pumps along the outer surface of the cylinder. >Thus, most of the pusher plate and plasma material can be >recycled. You say the gun silencer has series of conical baffles, but you don't mention how these baffles are attached to the "silencer". You suggest the acceleration of a pellet happens almost instantaniously by some plasma expansion. I wonder, won't the launcer blow apart? >>>When it comes to exhaust velocity, the harshest fact of rocket design >>>is that the limiting factor is _availability_. > >>True, but I wonder, is a ramjet of the size that we need physically >>possible? > >This ramjet isn't supposed to scrounge around for interstellar >hydrogen, so its diameter is determined by how accurate the >pellet tracks can be laid and followed. To Kelly you wrote "TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they are wide", you already noted that protons need 1000 times more energy. I think that the amount of protons/electrons will make a difference too. A TV has to move around less than picograms of matter, compared to the kilograms that we need. That's a difference of rougly 15 magnitudes. Luckely, we won't have to supply that power since the particles will give back their energy as soon as they leave the magnet. The fieldstrength should not alter too much when the particles fly through the field of the superconducting magnets. >>It may be so inefficient that the power losses melt it away the >>instant that it starts to produce 1E16 Watt of power. > >The coolest thing about ramjets is that using superconducting >coils and an aneutronic fusion reaction _no_ waste heat is >absorbed by the starship. Superconductors aren't just almost >lossless, they are _entirely_ lossless. OK, the magnets aren't giving losses, but isn't there still a lot of uncontrolable heat from the thermal radiation from the hot particles? A more practical question: How are the superconducting magnets kept from blowing up? The charged particles that fly trough the magnets will create a magnetic flux. Normally as long as the particle flies trough without velocity gain, the superconducting magnets will have the same current before and after the particle flew trough. But in the ramjet design the particles will exit faster than they arived and thus will leave a non-zero flux. I do know little about how superconductors are given a current and a magnetic field, so the above question is more likely a result of not knowing then of doubting the design. Timothy P.S. If you reply, would you mind not to "reply to all"? As a default you will reply to the author and to Starship Design. The result is that the person you reply to will get your message in duplicate. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 09:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["531" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "09:48:36" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu" nil "11" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA10994 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:48:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA10977; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:48:36 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708131648.JAA10977@darkwing.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 530 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:48:36 -0700 (PDT) Timothy van der Linden writes: > Hmmm, I sent this letter 2 hours ago, but didn't receive a copy from SD yet. > If anyone else got this letter already, then you can throw away this one > because it is identical except for these sentences. darkwing.uoregon.edu was down overnight with a disk problem and will probably be a bit sluggish in getting list postings out this morning as it catches up with its backlog. If you sent a posting overnight that you haven't seen yet, please wait until this afternoon before resending it. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 11:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1047" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "13:21:33" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "28" "Re: RE: starship-design: Tugs" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA24231 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 11:20:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA24122 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 11:20:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA16132; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 13:21:34 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708131821.AA16132@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCA75D.0B111FC0@x2p43.gnt.com> from "L. Parker" at Aug 12, 97 07:04:24 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1046 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Tugs Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 13:21:33 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Kelly, >> That could be a very good idea! But would that up the power or weight >> requirements of the sail system to much? >Well, yes and no. The dielectrics had much lower reflectivity, on the >order of 87 percent which means they were much less efficient to start >with than what we had wanted. What happens to the light which doesn't get reflected? If it's transmitted, then 87% reflectivity is just fine. If it's absorbed, then we've got a problem. A limiting factor to laser sails is how much power per square meter they can handle without melting. >But dielectrics only use milliwatts to >control the reflectivity, negligible amounts of power as far as we are >concerened. A laser sail has plenty of power to spare. Small pholtovoltaic cells can generate a very useful amount of power just about anywhere you want it. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 12:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["9053" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "14:14:37" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "183" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA17649 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 12:13:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA17628 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 12:13:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA17575; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 14:14:37 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708131914.AA17575@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 13, 97 04:10:42 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 9052 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 14:14:37 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Isaac, >>>I suppose a black hole as stardrive does comply with the rocket equation? >>Well, it would be bizarre, but you could theoretically build a >>"rocket" around a black hole. For instance, it could be a large >>sphere with a hole. It absorbs Hawking radiation from the black >>hole, except for that hole (which is where thrust comes from). [...] >>A really bizzare starship, considering how much better it would be >>to just use the black hole as a highly effective anti-matter producer >>(in a fixed anti-matter factory). >Hmmm yes, I guess as long as you are a selfsufficient ship, you will comply >with the rocket equation. >I doubt though that you can get enough antimatter for these high exhaust >velocities. Likely you have to feed much more matter to the blackhole than >that you will get antimatter in return. Hold it. I think you're confusing what I'm talking about. The first idea, the black hole powered rocket, doesn't need antimatter production at all. All it cares about is that the spherical shell blocks Hawking radiation in all directions except the desired thrust direction, and that the Hawking radiation in the desired thrust direction has momentum. The fact that a significant fraction of that radiation will happen to be antimatter particles is of no consequence. The second, and more plausible idea, is that of using a black hole to produce usable antimatter. With sufficiently massive construction efforts, near 100% efficiency is acheivable. Assuming you can build a massive spherical shell around it, you can get a very efficient antimatter factory simply by throwing all your waste products back into the black hole (including most waste heat). Only a fraction of Hawking radiation is antimatter, and only a very small fraction of that could probably be captured into usable antimatter. But all the waste products except for a certain amount of waste heat radiation (that which escapes into space) can be recycled in the black hole. A black hole is quite indiscriminate about what it swallows up. But anyway, these speculations are far beyond the scope of this mailing list's purpose. >>I should recalculate things and type them up on my web page. >>Anyway, the important factor to keep in mind is that for any >>useful muzzle velocity, the acceleration occurs essentially >>instantly for purposes of rejecting waste heat. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^(note this for later) >>For a pellet launcher meant to fire frozen DT pellets, this >>would seem to be disastrous. The solution, as I see it, is >>to use a "pusher plate" of plasma pushing a frozen DT sabot >>which sacrificially melts, leaving a core frozen pellet which >>leaves the muzzle. Beyond the muzzle is a cylinder which >>looks a little like a large gun silencer. It is rotating >>quickly and has a series of conical baffles; its only openning >>is through the center, which the frozen pellet passes through. >>Gas pressure expansion forces most of the waste gas into the >>conical baffles, where centrifugal "force" funnels the gas to >>reclaimation pumps along the outer surface of the cylinder. >>Thus, most of the pusher plate and plasma material can be >>recycled. >You say the gun silencer has series of conical baffles, but you don't >mention how these baffles are attached to the "silencer". In its simplest form, imagine the "silencer" is simply a cylinder with two holes in the center of both ends. The objective of this cylinder is to capture gases escaping the muzzle, but it needs these two holes to allow the "bullet" through. Gas escaping through the rear hole isn't a problem because the "gun barrel" can seal this potential leak. Gas escaping through the forward hole is a problem, so some fraction of gas will escape through this hole despite the best efforts of vacuum pumps trying to reclaim the captured gases. The solution? How about another cylinder attached in front of this cylinder? It will succeed in capturing some fraction of the gas escaping from the first one. And how about another? And another? Pretty soon, you've got what looks like a long cylinder with a bunch of circular baffles inside. An extra refinement is to shape those baffles in a conical shape, pointing rearward, thus using the forward velocity of the gas to push it outward toward the rim mounted vacuum pumps. Oh, another refinement is to cool the baffles with frozen hydrogen to make the gas hitting them condense into liquid form. If you can do that, then the centrifugal "force" from spinning up the "silencer" will force the liquid against the outer surface. >You suggest the acceleration of a pellet happens almost instantaniously by >some plasma expansion. I wonder, won't the launcer blow apart? I didn't specify, but the plasma pusher is pushed forward using a rail gun design. Easier to get high muzzle velocities this way than with other methods. Compared to a TNT detonation, this is a gentle push. However, for purposes of heat rejection, it is going to be basically instantaneous (without a _very_ long barrel). Heat rejection is via radiation (it can't conduct away heat to the barrel because friction would cause much more heat if they were touching). And radiating away heat when you're only a few degrees Kelvin just doesn't happen very quickly. >>>True, but I wonder, is a ramjet of the size that we need physically >>>possible? >>This ramjet isn't supposed to scrounge around for interstellar >>hydrogen, so its diameter is determined by how accurate the >>pellet tracks can be laid and followed. >To Kelly you wrote "TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they >are wide", you already noted that protons need 1000 times more energy. >I think that the amount of protons/electrons will make a difference too. You're right, it does, because the curved paths of the affected particles are essentially induced currents which induce a magnetic field opposing the original one. However, it's not as simple as requiring twice as much field to handle twice as many particles. In a TV tube, the induced magnetic fields from the moving electrons are, of course, negligible. I confess I haven't done the math to come up with how strong the induced magnetic fields are for a DT pellet. >A TV has to move around less than picograms of matter, compared to the >kilograms that we need. That's a difference of rougly 15 magnitudes. >Luckely, we won't have to supply that power since the particles will give >back their energy as soon as they leave the magnet. The fieldstrength should >not alter too much when the particles fly through the field of the >superconducting magnets. Unfortunately, the fieldstrength can alter--and just where it matters. The field immediately around the superconductors won't change due to the properties of superconductors, but that's not where the particles are (however this does help in that the induced magnetic fields won't heat up the ship at all). The particles are near other particles from the same pellet, just where the induced magnetic fields of those other particles are strongest! This is an area where I confess I haven't thought things through with the real numbers. >>>It may be so inefficient that the power losses melt it away the >>>instant that it starts to produce 1E16 Watt of power. >>The coolest thing about ramjets is that using superconducting >>coils and an aneutronic fusion reaction _no_ waste heat is >>absorbed by the starship. Superconductors aren't just almost >>lossless, they are _entirely_ lossless. >OK, the magnets aren't giving losses, but isn't there still a lot of >uncontrolable heat from the thermal radiation from the hot particles? True, the hot plasma will glow with a lot of thermal radiation. However, highly reflective surfaces can prevent the ship from absorbing a significant amount, and since the magnetic fields prevent any particles from actually hitting the surfaces, they won't lose their flawless surfaces quickly. >A more practical question: How are the superconducting magnets kept from >blowing up? The charged particles that fly trough the magnets will create a >magnetic flux. Normally as long as the particle flies trough without >velocity gain, the superconducting magnets will have the same current before >and after the particle flew trough. But in the ramjet design the particles >will exit faster than they arived and thus will leave a non-zero flux. >I do know little about how superconductors are given a current and a >magnetic field, so the above question is more likely a result of not knowing >then of doubting the design. The superconductors resist any change in the magnetic field, which is one of the ways they are so different from normal conductors. What you point out would indeed be a serious concern if normal magnetic coils were used. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 12:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1898" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "14:30:00" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: Fusion" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA24418 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 12:29:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA24388 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 12:29:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA18198; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 14:30:01 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708131930.AA18198@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 13, 97 05:53:58 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1897 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Fusion Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 14:30:00 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Hello Isaac, >This is the rest of the previously "abandoned" letter about a pellet track. >>>Why is it easier? >>In a traditional continuous fusion rocket design, you need magnetic >>confinement, but you can't use superconductors because the field Oops, I neglected the electric field confinement concept. I can't plead ignorance, because I did read up on it before. I just forgot about it for no good reason. >But what about these 1 second sustained fusion reports we've heard about? >Did they fail because they are too leaky? Calling magnetic field confinement "leaky" is actually a gross oversimplification of the problem. The annoying thing about plasma is that it conducts electricity, and like any normal conductor magnetic field lines tend to get "pulled" along with them. Thus, what started as a nice magnetic torus or bottle neatly containing the plasma can get bent out of shape with deformations in the plasma, which reinforce those same deformations (like the way a bend in a river gets bigger). There has been a lot of research into trying to develop ways to stabalize those deformations, including helical magnetic fields and studying chaos theory and such, but it may simply turn out to be intractable. Anyway, these deformations aren't instantaneous, so you can actually contain the plasma for a significant amount of time before they get too bad. >But if a super conducting magnet is strong enough for pulsed fusion, why >isn't it strong enough for sustained fusion? The stronger the magnetic field, the less tendency they will have to be "pulled" by the moving plasma. The problem with the deformations is practically irrelevant to pulsed fusion. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 13:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["864" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "09:56:44" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "16" "starship-design: Fusion Containment and Sustaining in Shock Waves" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA23794 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 13:40:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from r2.boston.juno.com (r2.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.241]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA23671 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 13:40:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by r2.boston.juno.com (8.8.6.Beta0/8.8.6.Beta0/2.0.kim) with ESMTP id KAAAA22412 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 10:01:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JzB11413; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:59:23 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970813.100110.12158.3.jimaclem@juno.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 12-14 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 863 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Fusion Containment and Sustaining in Shock Waves Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:56:44 -0400 Here's a wild haired idea ('bout all I seem to be able to come with lately). Make a shell of deuterium ice, shaped as a rotated parabola (or ellipse, hyperbola, and any other rotated volume). Initiate fusion on the inner surface (also a rotated shape with a laser. Actually the reflected beam from a laser (you'll see why). It seems reasonable (a ifficult term to pin down on the best of days) that with the correct shape, the shock wave created between the fusing outer ayers and the remaining deuterium might contain the reaction. At least long enough to complete the fusing of the rest of the fuel. Pipe the plasma into a chamber of water ice (or whatever you have available) and heat it for extra reaction mass. This may not be useful for interstellar flight, but might be a darn sight better for in-system travel. Let me know what you think. Jim C. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 17:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["203" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "19:12:30" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "7" "starship-design: Black holes and the rocket equation" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA09034 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:28:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA08964 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:28:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p2.gnt.com [204.49.68.207]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA14852 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:28:20 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA81F.0D0F72A0@x2p2.gnt.com>; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:28:17 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA81F.0D0F72A0@x2p2.gnt.com> Encoding: 5 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 202 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Black holes and the rocket equation Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:12:30 -0500 Let's nip this one in the bud early on, do you guys want to make a stab at guessing the MASS of a black hole? Tell me how you are going to get enough thrust out of the black hole to MOVE it.... Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 17:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["448" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "19:17:53" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "16" "starship-design: Solar sails/Laser sails" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA09419 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:30:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA09361 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:30:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p2.gnt.com (x2p2.gnt.com [204.49.68.207]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA14863 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:28:30 -0500 Received: by x2p2.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA81F.141982C0@x2p2.gnt.com>; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:28:29 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA81F.141982C0@x2p2.gnt.com> Encoding: 14 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 447 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Solar sails/Laser sails Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:17:53 -0500 Isaac, > What happens to the light which doesn't get reflected? If it's > transmitted, then 87% reflectivity is just fine. If it's absorbed, > then we've got a problem. A limiting factor to laser sails is > how much power per square meter they can handle without melting. It is typically absorbed. We haven't really paid much attention to emissivity yet, but you are right, emissivity becomes important at high power levels. Lee Parker From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 19:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["10329" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "20:27:02" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "160" "Re: starship-design: Black holes and the rocket equation" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA11333 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:27:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA11323 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:27:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.83]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA14384 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 22:27:20 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33F27B06.A4D@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BCA81F.0D0F72A0@x2p2.gnt.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------70B072804A68" Content-Length: 10328 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Black holes and the rocket equation Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 20:27:02 -0700 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------70B072804A68 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit L. Parker wrote: > > Let's nip this one in the bud early on, do you guys want to make a stab at > guessing the MASS of a black hole? Tell me how you are going to get enough > thrust out of the black hole to MOVE it.... > > Lee That's easy. You get thrust by feeding the hole, it then moves forward. If you have built a variable angular acceleration engine driven with particle superconducting acceleration, It's easier, and can be reactionless since you now have a braking system. You can also use the black hole as a power source for an engine (see my GIF below). If anyone says that this is a perpetual motion machine, they know very little about physics. (Sure it would last hundreds of years, but so do planetary orbits!!). You could also use this to create a differential field propulsion system, where you fall into a frontal gravity well. Black holes are just powerful enough to do this. Many other things that could be done. E-mail me if interested. 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darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA09206 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 21:30:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA09195 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 21:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts8-line7.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.71]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA21086 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 21:29:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA00610; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 21:33:19 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708140433.VAA00610@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <01BCA81F.0D0F72A0@x2p2.gnt.com> References: <01BCA81F.0D0F72A0@x2p2.gnt.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 765 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Black holes and the rocket equation Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 21:33:19 -0700 L. Parker writes: > Let's nip this one in the bud early on, do you guys want to make a stab at > guessing the MASS of a black hole? Tell me how you are going to get enough > thrust out of the black hole to MOVE it.... Who needs to guess? Black holes can be any size you want. Unless a successful quantum gravity theory puts a minimum limit on black hole size based on the size of a quantum of space, there's no size minimum and hence no mass minimum, If I remember correctly, R = G * M/(2 * c^2): R = Schwarzchild radius, M = mass, G = gravitational constant, c = speed of light. Small black holes also make better thrusters; they evaporate much, much faster. Any stellar-sized black hole doesn't evaporate quickly enough to be useful for that purpose. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 13 22:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1341" "Wed" "13" "August" "1997" "23:33:04" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "32" "Re: starship-design: Black holes and the rocket equation" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA23040 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 22:33:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA23027 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 22:33:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-97.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.97]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA15955 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 01:33:17 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33F2A22D.43AA@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <01BCA81F.0D0F72A0@x2p2.gnt.com> <199708140433.VAA00610@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1340 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Black holes and the rocket equation Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 23:33:04 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > Who needs to guess? Black holes can be any size you want. Unless a > successful quantum gravity theory puts a minimum limit on black hole > size based on the size of a quantum of space, there's no size minimum > and hence no mass minimum, Correct. I recommend to all interested Kip Thorne's book "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's outrageous legacy". It explains everything (almost) about black holes. Also for some speculation on them for propulsion, "Cosmic Wormholes" by Paul Halpern. Black holes are a really speculative thing (in starship engineering). I'm not saying we can't speculate on using them, but we'd have to make some (!) estimates if we intend to use them for SSD. It's up to everyone. > > If I remember correctly, R = G * M/(2 * c^2): R = Schwarzchild radius, M > = mass, G = gravitational constant, c = speed of light. This is the closest estimate we can get. Remember: A black hole can have a measurable circumference that is precis, but a diameter that does not equal 4pi. One of natures little tricks. > Small black holes also make better thrusters; they evaporate much, much > faster. Any stellar-sized black hole doesn't evaporate quickly enough > to be useful for that purpose. Hopefully the don't explode violently! (And I mean one POWERFUL explosion) Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 14 06:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["585" "Thu" "14" "August" "1997" "08:55:39" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "16" "starship-design: Black Hole: Sorry!!" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA22145 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 06:54:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id GAA22123 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 06:54:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA04935; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 08:55:39 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708141355.AA04935@bit.csc.lsu.edu> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 584 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: starship-design: Black Hole: Sorry!! Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 08:55:39 -0500 (CDT) Look, I'm sorry I even mentionned it (black hole). Honestly, I am sorry. Theoretically, black holes can be used for various things. Anything done with a black hole is far, far, beyond the scope of this mailing list (unless someone knows about some sort of plausible methods of creating a black hole within the solar system in the next couple centuries). Can we just leave it at that, please? -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 14 08:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["281" "Thu" "14" "August" "1997" "10:11:34" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "10" "RE: starship-design: Black Hole: Sorry!!" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA10167 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 08:12:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA10146 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 08:12:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p15.gnt.com (x2p15.gnt.com [204.49.68.220]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA17638 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 10:12:13 -0500 Received: by x2p15.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA89A.873727A0@x2p15.gnt.com>; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 10:12:10 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA89A.873727A0@x2p15.gnt.com> Encoding: 8 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 280 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Black Hole: Sorry!! Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 10:11:34 -0500 Isaac, Sorry, I wasn't coming down on YOU, just the continuation of science fiction engineering in general. Black holes make really interesting stories and have been used by LOTS of science fiction authors. But in terms of today's physics, we haven't really got a clue. Lee From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 14 12:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["577" "Thu" "14" "August" "1997" "21:23:24" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "18" "Re: starship-design: Solar sails/Laser sails" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA14156 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:23:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA14130 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:23:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wz5Uz-000JobC; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 21:23:57 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 576 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Solar sails/Laser sails Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 21:23:24 +0100 Lee, You wrote: >It is typically absorbed. We haven't really paid much attention to >emissivity yet, but you are right, emissivity becomes important at high >power levels. We have been paying attention to it. Even last month (Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:34:12 +0100) I answered your question "Forget terminal velocity, at what speed does the sail melt?" Furthermore that Landis paper does a good job about comparing different materials. He cogently points out that a high melting temperature is NOT the property that is most important when looking for a sail material. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 14 12:24 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5606" "Thu" "14" "August" "1997" "21:23:17" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "119" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA14379 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:24:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA14349 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:24:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wz5Ur-000JoZC; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 21:23:49 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 5605 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 21:23:17 +0100 Hello Isaac, You replied: >>Hmmm yes, I guess as long as you are a selfsufficient ship, you will comply >>with the rocket equation. >>I doubt though that you can get enough antimatter for these high exhaust >>velocities. Likely you have to feed much more matter to the blackhole than >>that you will get antimatter in return. > >Hold it. I think you're confusing what I'm talking about. The first >idea, the black hole powered rocket, doesn't need antimatter >production at all. All it cares about is that the spherical shell >blocks Hawking radiation in all directions except the desired thrust >direction, and that the Hawking radiation in the desired thrust >direction has momentum. The fact that a significant fraction of >that radiation will happen to be antimatter particles is of no >consequence. Oh, sorry, I indeed misread. >The second, and more plausible idea, is that of using a black hole >to produce usable antimatter. With sufficiently massive construction >efforts, near 100% efficiency is acheivable. Assuming you can build >a massive spherical shell around it, you can get a very efficient >antimatter factory simply by throwing all your waste products back >into the black hole (including most waste heat). Only a fraction of >Hawking radiation is antimatter, and only a very small fraction of >that could probably be captured into usable antimatter. But all the >waste products except for a certain amount of waste heat radiation >(that which escapes into space) can be recycled in the black hole. I wonder though what momentum per unit of mass both designs would give you. The problem with using a blackhole is likely has to be too heavy to produce a usable amount of energy. As a result the "engine" would be much heavier than the fuel. >But anyway, these speculations are far beyond the scope of this mailing >list's purpose. True, but ocassionally the list is used to exchange a bit of knowledge. >>You say the gun silencer has series of conical baffles, but you don't >>mention how these baffles are attached to the "silencer". >In its simplest form, imagine the "silencer" is simply a cylinder >with two holes in the center of both ends.... OK, the design is much clearer now. >>You suggest the acceleration of a pellet happens almost instantaniously by >>some plasma expansion. I wonder, won't the launcer blow apart? > >I didn't specify, but the plasma pusher is pushed forward using >a rail gun design. Easier to get high muzzle velocities this way >than with other methods. Compared to a TNT detonation, this is >a gentle push. True, but even if it is a gentle push compared to a TNT detonation, it likely is still a big bang. What do you suggest is the mass of the pellet you want to accelerate? >However, for purposes of heat rejection, it is going to be >basically instantaneous (without a _very_ long barrel). Heat >rejection is via radiation (it can't conduct away heat to the >barrel because friction would cause much more heat if they >were touching). And radiating away heat when you're only a >few degrees Kelvin just doesn't happen very quickly. Do you have any guess what the energy waste per pelletmass will be? >>>>True, but I wonder, is a ramjet of the size that we need physically >>>>possible? > >>>This ramjet isn't supposed to scrounge around for interstellar >>>hydrogen, so its diameter is determined by how accurate the >>>pellet tracks can be laid and followed. > >>To Kelly you wrote "TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they >>are wide", you already noted that protons need 1000 times more energy. >>I think that the amount of protons/electrons will make a difference too. > >You're right, it does, because the curved paths of the affected >particles are essentially induced currents which induce a magnetic >field opposing the original one. However, it's not as simple as >requiring twice as much field to handle twice as many particles. >In a TV tube, the induced magnetic fields from the moving electrons >are, of course, negligible. I confess I haven't done the math >to come up with how strong the induced magnetic fields are for >a DT pellet. It might be interesting to do some rough calculations. If we'd catch 1 kg of hydrogen ions that means 6.2E26 ions and a current of 1E8 Ampere. That current alone would generate non trivial magnetic fields. On the other hand we would have a similar amount of electrons that go the same direction (however likely along the outside of the ship). >>A more practical question: How are the superconducting magnets kept from >>blowing up? The charged particles that fly trough the magnets will create a >>magnetic flux. Normally as long as the particle flies trough without >>velocity gain, the superconducting magnets will have the same current before >>and after the particle flew trough. But in the ramjet design the particles >>will exit faster than they arrived and thus will leave a non-zero flux. >>I do know little about how superconductors are given a current and a >>magnetic field, so the above question is more likely a result of not knowing >>then of doubting the design. > >The superconductors resist any change in the magnetic field, which >is one of the ways they are so different from normal conductors. If I understand correctly, the way that they resist that change in magnetic field is by changing the current inside the superconductor. In the situation explained above, the current would rise more and more until the current would become too high and break down the special properties of the superconductor. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 14 12:31 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["446" "Thu" "14" "August" "1997" "21:31:35" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "12" "RE: starship-design: Black Hole: Sorry!!" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA17145 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:31:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA17133 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:31:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wz5ct-000JpFC; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 21:32:07 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 445 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Black Hole: Sorry!! Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 21:31:35 +0100 The current discussion about black holes is merely a way of exchanging information. It is not at all meant to seriously consider such an engine. It is meant to talk a little about certain properties of black holes and to clarify how they may relate to normal designs. So please Isaac, don't be sorry. Clarifying things is one of the purposes of this list. If you need to use FTL, quantum mechanics or whatever, that is not a problem. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 14 14:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["601" "Thu" "14" "August" "1997" "15:56:35" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "15" "RE: starship-design: Solar sails/Laser sails" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA24768 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 14:00:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA24711 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 14:00:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x2p15.gnt.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA05488 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 15:59:57 -0500 Received: by x2p15.gnt.com with Microsoft Mail id <01BCA8CB.1C3516C0@x2p15.gnt.com>; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 15:59:56 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCA8CB.1C3516C0@x2p15.gnt.com> Encoding: 13 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 600 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Solar sails/Laser sails Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 15:56:35 -0500 Timothy, I didn't mean we had ignored emissivity, we just hadn't specifically talked about it. Melting point is just a number, reaching that number is a function of reflectivity, absorption and emissivity of radiation, all of which vary depending upon the wavelength of the radiation. As Landis points out, some materials with very high melting points aren't good choices for sail material because of low reflectivity, low emissivity or high absorption rates. From a technical standpoint his was about the most thorough paper I've yet seen on the subject. Too bad he spells like Kelly... Lee From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 15 12:56 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["238" "Fri" "15" "August" "1997" "21:56:07" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "11" "RE: starship-design: Solar sails/Laser sails" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA10894 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 12:56:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA10795 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 12:56:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-014.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0wzSUB-000POaC; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:56:39 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 237 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Solar sails/Laser sails Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:56:07 +0100 Hello Lee, >I didn't mean we had ignored emissivity, we just hadn't specifically talked >about it. Sorry, I got the impression I was answering questions without being heard. I'm interested though what questions there are... Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 15 21:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["619" "Sat" "16" "August" "1997" "00:28:06" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "31" "Re: starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA20517 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA20499 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA24511; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970816002804_-969145364@emout12.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 618 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:06 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/12/97 5:05:29 PM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >On Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:48:08 -0400 (EDT) KellySt@aol.com writes: >> >>In a message dated 8/8/97 6:30:02 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. >>Parker) >>wrote: >> >>>Zenon, >>> >>>> (expect tanks with kilograms of antimatter hauled over interstate >>>> highways ... ;-)) >> >> >> 8( !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT ON MY PLANET!! >> >> ;) >> >>Kelly >> >Actually, the antimatter produced for PSU's project is only measured in >nanograms, used to catalyze fiss/fusion reactions. > >Jim If you want to fel a starship, you'll need a LOT more than that. Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 15 21:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["606" "Sat" "16" "August" "1997" "00:28:08" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "27" "Re: starship-design: antimatter production" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA20528 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA20516 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA12087; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970816002807_497547371@emout13.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 605 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: antimatter production Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:08 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/12/97 6:52:51 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (Kyle R. Mcallister) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >> >> In a message dated 8/8/97 6:30:02 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) >> wrote: >> >> >Zenon, >> > >> >> (expect tanks with kilograms of antimatter hauled over interstate >> >> highways ... ;-)) >> >> 8( !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT ON MY PLANET!! > >Send them to me! I'll handle storage. I charge by the microgram. (I >think thats a fair deal when sitting next to a large explosion ready to >happen) > >Kyle Mcallister A man with a firm grasp of busness realities. ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 15 21:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3214" "Sat" "16" "August" "1997" "00:28:17" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "68" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA20572 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA20548 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA27103; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:17 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970816002815_688218859@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3213 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:17 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/14/97 1:42:21 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/9/97 10:47:53 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: > >>>One thing that a lot of people seem to ignore when discussing traditional >>>fusion rockets is that any fusion rocket with very high Isp will be >>>_very_ low thrust, because of power requirements. > >>Actually the Bussard Votage compression system I went into seems likely to >>give 10 to 1 thrust to weigh ratios. Maybe even a couple times that. With >>Isp in the 1-2 million range. > >Well, I make a flat assumption that outside of special circumstances, >the waste heat pumped into the ship itself will be a significant >percentage of the energy going into the exhaust. (Special circumstances >would include isolation from the exhaust and its power source by >superconducting coils. Superconductors are inherently capable of >doing certain things with seemingly magical 100% efficiency.) > >Assuming a .1% percentage, a rocket with a 10:1 thrust/weight ratio >and 1 millions sec Isp would be absorbing 10^12 watts/kg in waste >heat. Without massive heat rejection systems (which would adversely >affect the thrust/weight ratio), that's going to melt the rocket in >a fraction of a second. > >Therefore I don't consider the Bussard Votage compressions system >to truly offer a plausible chance at such high thrust/weight ratios, >considering how various components are directly impacted by fusion >products (thus implying a significant waste heat problem). Actually the Bussard system use anti-nutronic fuels that convert virtually all the power of the fusion reaction into the kinetic energy of the charged waste particals. Efficency is about 99.9+%. (give or take). Most of the waste can just be vented to the sides. Super couductors arn't quite as majical as you seem to think. They can't deal with radiation, heat, have limited load capacities etc. I'm also pulzeled why you make such distinctions between other fusion systems and your ram fusion system? If anything the dificulty of grabing, fusing, and reacting off of fuel blasting at you at relatavistic speeds seems to dwarf other fusion systems. Other factors would be similar. >As for the efficacy of electric field containment for fusion power, >I'll admit I haven't read the reference articles on this compressions >system, but it seems very optimistic to assume it will even work well >enough to break even, much less provide power. I can't follow this. Why do you assume its so dificult? Certainly it couldn't require more power then the scoop or conventional magnetic confinment systems. >When fusion power is acheived, by any method, I'll gladly cheer >if I live long enough to see it. But until then, it seems like >the more we learn, the more we learn that it's not so easy. Magnetic plasma confinement is a pain, and designs that use it should be avoided. But their are several other designs. Laser fusion for example developed far ahead of mag-confine while it was under comercial development in the '80's. However your suggestions also use complex magnetic fusion concepts. So why list them and attack the others? Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 15 21:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1221" "Sat" "16" "August" "1997" "00:28:13" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "28" "Re: starship-design: Fusion Containment and Sustaining in Shock Waves" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA20547 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA20535 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA01362; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970816002810_-834608020@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1220 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Fusion Containment and Sustaining in Shock Waves Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:13 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/14/97 11:46:00 AM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >Here's a wild haired idea ('bout all I seem to be able to come with >lately). Make a shell of deuterium ice, shaped as a rotated parabola (or >ellipse, hyperbola, and any other rotated volume). Initiate fusion on >the inner surface (also a rotated shape with a laser. Actually the >reflected beam from a laser (you'll see why). It seems reasonable (a >ifficult term to pin down on the best of days) that with the correct >shape, the shock wave created between the fusing outer ayers and the >remaining deuterium might contain the reaction. At least long enough to >complete the fusing of the rest of the fuel. Pipe the plasma into a >chamber of water ice (or whatever you have available) and heat it for >extra reaction mass. This may not be useful for interstellar flight, but >might be a darn sight better for in-system travel. Let me know what you >think. > >Jim C. What your describing is a kind of inertial confinment fusion reactor. Most com mon for are the Laser fusion systems developed comercially in the '80's. Works great. Far better then Magnetic fusion. So I'm afraid your idea is far less wild then you assumed. ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 15 21:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5076" "Sat" "16" "August" "1997" "00:28:20" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "109" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA20621 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA20581 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:28:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA09617; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:20 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970816002820_-867914773@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5075 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:28:20 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/14/97 2:19:57 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/8/97 9:49:36 PM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>>Timothy van der Linden wrote: > >>>>If the pellets are slow moving, then what is the use of pellets? >>>>Catching pellets like this, will not give a significant energy advantage >>>>over taking the pellets with you (=attached to the starship) from the >>start. > >>>The advantages are: > >>>1. You only have to accelerate the unfueled ship. > >>Well not really. The ship slams into the unaccelerated fuel and has to >>accelerate it up to most of the ships velicity in order to scoop it into the >>engines. Otherwise it would blast through the scop mechanism and past the >>ship before the scoop could shift it inward. > >First off, I'm going to view this in terms of the inertial frame of >the ship. Thus, the ship has no kinetic energy but the incoming >pellets have a lot of kinetic energy. > >When the fuel first hits the magnetic field, induced electric fields >would heat it up and turn it into plasma. For the most part, this >energy is lost forever (because the effective expansion ratio of >the magnetic rocket nozzle won't cool the exhaust down to such a low >tempurature). > >However, once broken down into charged particles, the plasma can >be directed with the magnetic fields in an energy conservative >way. The electrons in a TV travel at around .75 c, and yet >TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they are wide. >You could do the same thing with protons with magnetic fields >only a 1000 times stronger than a TV CRT's. Note the mass of the TV tubes deflector magnets in comparison to the mass of the beam they are deflecting. Now scale such a system up to handel tons of fuel over tens if not hundreds of miles. Oh, you forgot the lateral thrust needed to bend the fuel stream, has to be countered by a similar force on the ship. Assuming a balenced and centered partical streeam (unlikely) that would translate into structural loads on the ship and scoop mechanisms. >So the individual particles will continue to travel at the same >speed that they entered the magnetic fields at (despite having >their path radically bent). The challenge is to direct all these >particles rearward with the magnetic rocket nozzle. Here's >really where the losses can really creep in if the nozzle isn't >designed just right. All the kinetic energy of each particle >is still there (magnetic fields are conservative), but the nozzle >has to direct the particles in the rearward direction. > >>>2. You don't have to bend over backwards trying to ignite fusion (since >>> you're using the pellet's kinetic energy). It's actually _easier_ >>> to implement a fusion ramjet than it is to implement a onboard >>> fusion drive. > >>Ah, but that would ignite the fuel during the point of Max acceleration in >>the system. Which would be when it hits the scoop, not when its in the >>engine? The fuel would produce nothing but drag. > >No it wouldn't. Acceleration isn't the same thing as compression. >A magnetic field affects charged particles by making them tend to >follow the field lines (actually, they make a helical path around >a field line). Thus, compression is caused where field lines >get closer together. A ramscoop design uses several coils to >generate a magnetic field with field lines converging toward >the center. This has the inevitable effect of compressing whatever >it scoops up in the center. Since the plasma starts out as frozen particals (high density). The flash heating as the pellets slam into the scoop fields would cause uneven inertial confinement fusion in the particals as they hit the collector fields. Asside from scattering the unburned fuel. It would also rattle te hell out of the scoop system, and starve the engines. >>I also doubt magnetic confinement fusion will ever be practical. Certainly >>the systems the U.S. gov. research group are coming up with suggest that. >> Thats why I'm using the voltage compression system described by Bussard (and >>decribed in the web site). You however ARE assuming we can megnetically >>control ultra hot plasmas. Thats how your scoop/drive system works. > >I assume we can magnetically control ultra hot plasmas because we _can_ >and _do_ control ultra hot plasmas. Demonstrating fusion in a magnetic >confinement research reactor like Tokomak is routine. Demonstrating >_sustained_ fusion isn't (obviously). That's why I'm so much more >optomistic about pulsed fusion. > >Anyway, magnetic confinement is a very mature technology, thanks to >millions upon millions of dollars worth of research over the last >several decades. At least we're already familiar with it and its >technical pitfalls. Actually stable magnetic confinement of dense high energy plasma streams is the critical failure in our magnetic fusion research. Since its the brick wall we can't get past now, why are you so confident that its the easiest tech for a future rocket system? Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 15 21:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["859" "Fri" "15" "August" "1997" "22:53:35" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "20" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA23731 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:53:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA23677 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 21:53:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-75.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-75.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.75]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA13704 for ; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:53:49 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33F5405F.1F79@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <970816002820_-867914773@emout20.mail.aol.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 858 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 22:53:35 -0700 KellySt@aol.com wrote: > > >However, once broken down into charged particles, the plasma can > >be directed with the magnetic fields in an energy conservative > >way. The electrons in a TV travel at around .75 c, and yet > >TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they are wide. > >You could do the same thing with protons with magnetic fields > >only a 1000 times stronger than a TV CRT's. Interesting note: If a TV CRT was made long and wide enough, the waves in it travel faster than light (sort of). Actually, its a trick nature plays on us. Steve, you could probably explain this better (similar to the superluminal scissors). If we need powerful lasers, use the sun's plasma to generate laser beams. It could be induced by nuclear warheads, or smaller lasers. I read it in a web page somewhere, I'll see if I can find it. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 07:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5587" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "09:43:12" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "113" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA11010 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 07:42:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA10999 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 07:42:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA11122; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:43:13 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708181443.AA11122@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 14, 97 09:23:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5586 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:43:12 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Hello Isaac, [...about black hole "drives"...] >>The second, and more plausible idea, is that of using a black hole >>to produce usable antimatter. With sufficiently massive construction [...] >I wonder though what momentum per unit of mass both designs would give you. >The problem with using a blackhole is likely has to be too heavy to produce >a usable amount of energy. As a result the "engine" would be much heavier >than the fuel. Actually, black holes produce _more_ energy the smaller they are. In fact, if you don't keep feeding it, it will explosively evaporate away. Playing around with small black holes makes letting Calvin play with a flame thrower indoors look positively safe. As for the potential for the latter concept, it all really depends upon how good an antimatter powered rocket you can make. Antimatter rockets look ideal for interstellar travel, assuming you can get a lot of it. >>>You suggest the acceleration of a pellet happens almost instantaniously by >>>some plasma expansion. I wonder, won't the launcer blow apart? >>I didn't specify, but the plasma pusher is pushed forward using >>a rail gun design. Easier to get high muzzle velocities this way >>than with other methods. Compared to a TNT detonation, this is >>a gentle push. >True, but even if it is a gentle push compared to a TNT detonation, it >likely is still a big bang. What do you suggest is the mass of the pellet >you want to accelerate? Very small. Anyway, I'm no expert on electromagnetic railgun designs, but plenty of real scientists doing real research on actual railguns are, and some of them even have web pages. Search Yahoo! with "electromagnetic railgun". There are a lot of cool things out there. Particularly pertinent to this discussion is research into hydrogen pellet accelerators for magnetic fusion reactor fueling, since these same pellets would be ideal for the fusion ramjet I'm proposing. Muzzle velocities of over 3km/s have been demonstrated, but I suggest thinking in terms of only 1km/s or so because the fuel packets will ideally have a lightweight railgun with a limited power supply (on board fission and/or collection panels for ship based beamed power). >>>>This ramjet isn't supposed to scrounge around for interstellar >>>>hydrogen, so its diameter is determined by how accurate the >>>>pellet tracks can be laid and followed. >>>To Kelly you wrote "TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they >>>are wide", you already noted that protons need 1000 times more energy. >>>I think that the amount of protons/electrons will make a difference too. >>You're right, it does, because the curved paths of the affected >>particles are essentially induced currents which induce a magnetic >>field opposing the original one. However, it's not as simple as >>requiring twice as much field to handle twice as many particles. >>In a TV tube, the induced magnetic fields from the moving electrons >>are, of course, negligible. I confess I haven't done the math >>to come up with how strong the induced magnetic fields are for >>a DT pellet. >It might be interesting to do some rough calculations. If we'd catch 1 kg of >hydrogen ions that means 6.2E26 ions and a current of 1E8 Ampere. >That current alone would generate non trivial magnetic fields. On the other >hand we would have a similar amount of electrons that go the same direction >(however likely along the outside of the ship). Your analysis is flawed because the electrons would travel along with the ions. It would be very nice if we could somehow convince the electrons and nuclei to somehow part from each other, because then electric fields could be used to manipulate them as well as magnetic fields. However, they're rather stuck on each other because of their opposing electric charge. Anyway, the sort of pulsed fusion I'm proposing is similar to magnetic target fusion, which requires starting densities of 10^18 nuclei per cm^3. The specifics of the plasmatizing of the pellet would determine what mass of pellet is needed. I'm not familiar enough with the factors involved to make a good assessment of that part. >>>A more practical question: How are the superconducting magnets kept from >>>blowing up? The charged particles that fly trough the magnets will create a >>>magnetic flux. Normally as long as the particle flies trough without >>>velocity gain, the superconducting magnets will have the same current before >>>and after the particle flew trough. But in the ramjet design the particles >>>will exit faster than they arrived and thus will leave a non-zero flux. >>>I do know little about how superconductors are given a current and a >>>magnetic field, so the above question is more likely a result of not knowing >>>then of doubting the design. >>The superconductors resist any change in the magnetic field, which >>is one of the ways they are so different from normal conductors. >If I understand correctly, the way that they resist that change in magnetic >field is by changing the current inside the superconductor. >In the situation explained above, the current would rise more and more until >the current would become too high and break down the special properties of >the superconductor. Yes, but since the magnetic field they are resisting is only momentary, so is the opposing electric current. It doesn't build up. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 08:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4614" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "10:17:32" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "99" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA19875 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 08:17:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA19853 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 08:16:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA11959; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 10:17:32 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708181517.AA11959@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970816002815_688218859@emout18.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 16, 97 00:28:17 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4613 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 10:17:32 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/14/97 1:42:21 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>Well, I make a flat assumption that outside of special circumstances, >>the waste heat pumped into the ship itself will be a significant >>percentage of the energy going into the exhaust. (Special circumstances >>would include isolation from the exhaust and its power source by >>superconducting coils. Superconductors are inherently capable of >>doing certain things with seemingly magical 100% efficiency.) >>Assuming a .1% percentage, a rocket with a 10:1 thrust/weight ratio >>and 1 millions sec Isp would be absorbing 10^12 watts/kg in waste >>heat. Without massive heat rejection systems (which would adversely >>affect the thrust/weight ratio), that's going to melt the rocket in >>a fraction of a second. >>Therefore I don't consider the Bussard Votage compressions system >>to truly offer a plausible chance at such high thrust/weight ratios, >>considering how various components are directly impacted by fusion >>products (thus implying a significant waste heat problem). >Actually the Bussard system use anti-nutronic fuels that convert virtually >all the power of the fusion reaction into the kinetic energy of the charged >waste particals. Efficency is about 99.9+%. (give or take). Most of the >waste can just be vented to the sides. However, in order to get the electric energy from it, you propose terminals which directly contact some of those charged particles. Even without this assumption, you need to plasmatize the reactants, and electrically charge them, and you need to create and maintain the electric potential field. All of these things will not be 100% efficient. >Super couductors arn't quite as majical as you seem to think. They can't >deal with radiation, heat, have limited load capacities etc. I know they aren't all powerful. However, I find what they do do to be very counterintuitive. >I'm also pulzeled why you make such distinctions between other fusion systems >and your ram fusion system? If anything the dificulty of grabing, fusing, >and reacting off of fuel blasting at you at relatavistic speeds seems to >dwarf other fusion systems. Other factors would be similar. Primarily because in order to acheive high thrust, I expect the ram fusion system to be a low Isp rocket drive. In other words, it would sacrifice exhaust velocity (exhaust velocity difference) for thrust capability. With a normal rocket, you can't do this because your propellant requirements will blow up exponentially. With a ramjet, the requirements go up more modestly. That said, the way in which I conceived of this fusion ramjet is specifically designed to prevent any need for the starship to funnel any power to or from the main drive. >>As for the efficacy of electric field containment for fusion power, >>I'll admit I haven't read the reference articles on this compressions >>system, but it seems very optimistic to assume it will even work well >>enough to break even, much less provide power. >I can't follow this. Why do you assume its so dificult? Because if it were so easy, it would already be giving us cheap fusion power. >Certainly it couldn't require more power then the scoop or >conventional magnetic confinment systems. There are difficulties in dealing with charged plasma, since the more charged it is, the more it wants to fly apart (even more). The less charged it is, the more you need a stronger electric potential difference. Setting up that potential difference in the right geometry is challenging as well. >>When fusion power is acheived, by any method, I'll gladly cheer >>if I live long enough to see it. But until then, it seems like >>the more we learn, the more we learn that it's not so easy. >Magnetic plasma confinement is a pain, and designs that use it should be >avoided. But their are several other designs. Laser fusion for example >developed far ahead of mag-confine while it was under comercial development >in the '80's. However your suggestions also use complex magnetic fusion >concepts. So why list them and attack the others? Magnetic plasma confinement is a pain, but it is a pain we know. The technology we do have is mature, so it can be safely used in speculations of future technology. We can and do acheive fusion with magnetic confinement. We just don't do it well enough to acheive sustained fusion. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 08:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4908" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "10:46:40" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "101" "Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA29998 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 08:45:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA29849 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 08:45:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA12840; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 10:46:40 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708181546.AA12840@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970816002820_-867914773@emout20.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 16, 97 00:28:20 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4907 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 10:46:40 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/14/97 2:19:57 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>First off, I'm going to view this in terms of the inertial frame of >>the ship. Thus, the ship has no kinetic energy but the incoming >>pellets have a lot of kinetic energy. >>When the fuel first hits the magnetic field, induced electric fields >>would heat it up and turn it into plasma. For the most part, this >>energy is lost forever (because the effective expansion ratio of >>the magnetic rocket nozzle won't cool the exhaust down to such a low >>tempurature). >>However, once broken down into charged particles, the plasma can >>be directed with the magnetic fields in an energy conservative >>way. The electrons in a TV travel at around .75 c, and yet >>TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they are wide. >>You could do the same thing with protons with magnetic fields >>only a 1000 times stronger than a TV CRT's. >Note the mass of the TV tubes deflector magnets in comparison to the mass of >the beam they are deflecting. Now scale such a system up to handel tons of >fuel over tens if not hundreds of miles. It doesn't scale linearly with the mass of the beam, and the size doesn't scale up at all. For a given magnetic field, the charged particles are deflected into helical motion with a radius determined by their charge/mass ratio. This does not go up at all with mass of the beam. What does go up is the strength of the opposing magnetic field. >Oh, you forgot the lateral thrust needed to bend the fuel stream, has to be >countered by a similar force on the ship. Assuming a balenced and centered >partical streeam (unlikely) that would translate into structural loads on the >ship and scoop mechanisms. The pellet stream will be balanced, because the ship will maneuver as best it can to keep it centered along the incoming pellets (it can do so by manipulating the magnetic fields of the nozzle). The lateral loads on the scoop is a problem, which is why the mass of each pellet must be minimized, and the precision of the pellet shooters maximized. >>>Ah, but that would ignite the fuel during the point of Max acceleration in >>>the system. Which would be when it hits the scoop, not when its in the >>>engine? The fuel would produce nothing but drag. >>No it wouldn't. Acceleration isn't the same thing as compression. >>A magnetic field affects charged particles by making them tend to >>follow the field lines (actually, they make a helical path around >>a field line). Thus, compression is caused where field lines >>get closer together. A ramscoop design uses several coils to >>generate a magnetic field with field lines converging toward >>the center. This has the inevitable effect of compressing whatever >>it scoops up in the center. >Since the plasma starts out as frozen particals (high density). The flash >heating as the pellets slam into the scoop fields would cause uneven inertial >confinement fusion in the particals as they hit the collector fields. I'm pessimistic about how much heating could acheive just from the flash heating alone. If it's enough to initiate fusion, then so much the better--it saves the trouble of doing so magnetically. The kinetic energy from the fusion is still in the products and will still be there when the pass through the magnetic nozzle. This assumes the products don't fly forward fast enough to overcome the initial backwards velocity they had. In that case, a pellet can be merely plasmatized with an initial, low strength magnetic field far forward of the main ramscoop. Gas pressure and the expanding magnetic field lines from behind this field will expand the plasma puff down to a level which can be scooped up without initiating fusion. >>I assume we can magnetically control ultra hot plasmas because we _can_ >>and _do_ control ultra hot plasmas. Demonstrating fusion in a magnetic >>confinement research reactor like Tokomak is routine. Demonstrating >>_sustained_ fusion isn't (obviously). That's why I'm so much more >>optomistic about pulsed fusion. >>Anyway, magnetic confinement is a very mature technology, thanks to >>millions upon millions of dollars worth of research over the last >>several decades. At least we're already familiar with it and its >>technical pitfalls. >Actually stable magnetic confinement of dense high energy plasma streams is >the critical failure in our magnetic fusion research. Since its the brick >wall we can't get past now, why are you so confident that its the easiest >tech for a future rocket system? _Stable_ magnetic confinement beyond what we can already acheive is unnecessary for pulsed fusion designs, of which this ramjet is one. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 09:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1626" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "10:18:00" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "35" "starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA10032 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:18:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA10010 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:18:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-69.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-69.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.69]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA11386 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 12:18:17 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33F883C8.2787@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1625 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 10:18:00 -0700 Greetings: I know this is a bit off the list topic, however... Things that cannot travel faster than light, such as normal matter, called tardyons, are prevented from travelling at C, since at this high velocity, the tau factor reaches infinity, and mass becomes infinite. Therefore, no force can move it faster. Massless particles called luxons (photons, gravitons, etc.) travel at light speed since they have no mass. They can neither be slowed down, nor sped up. (light slowing down has been observed, but is do to retransmission rates in a dense environment). Tachyons, FTL particles, travel faster than light since they have imaginary mass. What happens when you have negative mass? This has only been observed between casimir cavities, and they certainly don't exceed the speed of light, yet light speeds up in the cavity. Maybe negative mass particles travel faster than light? Or speed up light? Causality violation: Stephen Hawking has speculated that at FTL speeds, particle-antiparticle anhialations dampen out chronal distortions, thus preventing causality violation. Perhaps FTL IS allowed in this way, preventing causality violation. In effect, the "naughty" part of your trip is prevented from creating CV's since it is hidden behind an event horizon. This brings me back to my question: What happens if you surround a normal object with a spherical shell casimir cavity? I don't know if I would want to be the one to try it. Kyle Mcallister P.S: If two objects APPROACH, each one travelling .99C, what is their combined velocity of approach? Is this done the same way as the regular velocity addition? From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 11:24 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2291" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "11:24:09" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "53" "starship-design: Re: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA22683 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 11:24:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA22671 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 11:24:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA19617; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 11:24:10 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA09849; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 11:24:09 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708181824.LAA09849@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2290 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: FTL idea Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 11:24:09 -0700 Kyle writes: >What happens when you have negative mass? This >has only been observed between casimir cavities, and they certainly >don't exceed the speed of light, yet light speeds up in the cavity. >Maybe negative mass particles travel faster than light? Or speed up >light? Negative mass particles wouldn't travel faster than light. For a while it was speculated that perhaps antimatter had negative mass; no one had observed anitmatter's response to gravity, because there wasn't enough of it. But recently experiments have been done that show that antimatter has "positive" mass just like regular matter; it falls down, not up. If there was something with negative mass, perhaps it would be gravitationally repulsed by objects with positive mass. You could perhaps make anti-gravity ships, but not FTL. >Causality violation: >Stephen Hawking has speculated that at FTL speeds, particle-antiparticle >anhialations dampen out chronal distortions, thus preventing causality >violation. Perhaps FTL IS allowed in this way, preventing causality >violation. In effect, the "naughty" part of your trip is prevented from >creating CV's since it is hidden behind an event horizon. Maybe, but you need to define "naughty", and in my opinion the "naughty" part is the FTL itself. >This brings me back to my question: What happens if you surround a >normal object with a spherical shell casimir cavity? I don't know if I >would want to be the one to try it. In principle, a spherical casmir cavity would seem to be much more effective than a planar one; for a given volume in space you "damp" more modes of virtual photons in you can damp with 2-D plates. But, when you look at it more closely, it doesn't work. Casmir cavities need to be extremely small or they have no effect; a small 3-D cavity would be SO small that the "walls" couldn't really be called conducting at all, so it might not damp ANY virtual photons. Also you couldn't fit anything inside if you wanted it to be small enough to have any noticable effect on the vacuum. >P.S: If two objects APPROACH, each one travelling .99C, what is their >combined velocity of approach? Is this done the same way as the regular >velocity addition? Relative velocity = (0.99 + 0.99) / (1 + 0.99^2) = 0.99995c Ken From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 12:55 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["242" "Sat" "16" "August" "1997" "10:07:16" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "9" "RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA26655 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 12:55:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA26644 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 12:55:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p22.gnt.com [204.49.68.227]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA15746 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 14:55:22 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 14:55:20 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCABE6.BFB0E400.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 7 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 241 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 10:07:16 -0500 Kelly, Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the Russians successfully initiate a fusion reaction in a Stellarator in the 70s or 80s? It would seem to me that a Stellarator is nothing more than a magnetic confinement rocket engine... Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 13:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["893" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "15:25:28" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "20" "RE: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA10131 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 13:27:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA10114 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 13:27:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p45.gnt.com [204.49.68.250]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA19830 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 15:27:23 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 15:27:21 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCABEB.38BE6F80.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 18 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 892 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 15:25:28 -0500 Kyle, > mass. They can neither be slowed down, nor sped up. (light slowing down > has been observed, but is do to retransmission rates in a dense > environment). Tachyons, FTL particles, travel faster than light since > they have imaginary mass. What happens when you have negative mass? This > has only been observed between casimir cavities, and they certainly > don't exceed the speed of light, yet light speeds up in the cavity. > Maybe negative mass particles travel faster than light? Or speed up >light? [L. Parker] You answered your own question, the speed up in a Casimir cavity is caused by the near absence of atoms, or particles of any sort for that matter, and there is therefore less absorption and reemission of the photons. The increase in speed is only in relation to lights "normal" speed which is minisculely slower OUTSIDE the cavity in the "dense medium". Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 13:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2193" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "15:19:34" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "47" "RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA10278 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 13:27:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA10248 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 13:27:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p45.gnt.com [204.49.68.250]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA19822 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 15:27:19 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 15:27:17 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCABEB.35FD7AC0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 45 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2192 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 15:19:34 -0500 Just a general observation for everyone to think about...we are doing this backwards... Kelly and Isaac were (are) having a conversation from which this is excerpted: >>Assuming a .1% percentage, a rocket with a 10:1 thrust/weight ratio >>and 1 millions sec Isp would be absorbing 10^12 watts/kg in waste >>heat. Without massive heat rejection systems (which would adversely >>affect the thrust/weight ratio), that's going to melt the rocket in >>a fraction of a second. >>Therefore I don't consider the Bussard Votage compressions system >>to truly offer a plausible chance at such high thrust/weight ratios, >>considering how various components are directly impacted by fusion >>products (thus implying a significant waste heat problem). >Actually the Bussard system use anti-nutronic fuels that convert virtually >all the power of the fusion reaction into the kinetic energy of the charged >waste particals. Efficency is about 99.9+%. (give or take). Most of the >waste can just be vented to the sides. There is a great deal more, but the relevant parts have already been stated. First, any sort of rocket propulsion capable of propelling a starship needs an ISP of about 1 million give or take a few. Second, any such propulsion system is going to generate waste heat. Third, it is fairly likely that the total thermal gain to the ship is going to be significant, NO MATTER WHICH SPECIFIC DRIVE YOU USE. Fourth, the ship will be subjected to this temperature continuously for extremely long periods of time and will therefore also be subject to thermal and elastic fatigue. There are no metals, alloys, ablatives, or EM fields currently available to deal with this thermal gain. It will occur with fusion drives, plasma drives, photon drives and antimatter drives. It will even occur with Kyle's ZPE drive. So lets reverse engineer this thing. Start by assuming a particular metal alloy for the skin of the ship, determine its melting point, divide by two for a safety margin, now; what efficiency is NECESSARY in order to get an ISP of 1 million without exceeding the figure we just arrived at? Can we design a and build a drive to those requirements? Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 16:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3229" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "18:59:31" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "79" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA28955 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 16:58:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA28931 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 16:58:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA26565; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 18:59:31 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708182359.AA26565@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCABEB.35FD7AC0.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 18, 97 03:19:34 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3228 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 18:59:31 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Just a general observation for everyone to think about...we are doing this >backwards... >Kelly and Isaac were (are) having a conversation from which this is excerpted: >>>Assuming a .1% percentage, a rocket with a 10:1 thrust/weight ratio >>>and 1 millions sec Isp would be absorbing 10^12 watts/kg in waste >>>heat. Without massive heat rejection systems (which would adversely >>>affect the thrust/weight ratio), that's going to melt the rocket in >>>a fraction of a second. [...] >There is a great deal more, but the relevant parts have already been stated. >First, any sort of rocket propulsion capable of propelling a starship needs an >ISP of about 1 million give or take a few. Well, the "pellet track ramjet" (I'm finally giving it a name) could have a much lower Isp. Assuming a velocity stream acceleration of merely 100km/s (equivalent to 10,000 secs Isp) and a final velocity of .5c, each pellet track needs to be 1,500 times the mass of the starship. That may sound like a lot, but it compares very favorably to a traditional rocket--even a 1.8 million sec Isp rocket requires a mass ratio of 15,000 in order to accelerate to .5 c (I assume it can be refueled for deceleration en route). Also, a 1.8 million sec Isp rocket is 50% of the ideal fusion drive, and just a pipe dream now. 10,000 sec Isp ion drives exist _today_, even though they are low thrust. Critically, a lower Isp rocket generates proportionately more thrust for a given power level. Assuming the same power level, a 10,000 sec ramjet would produce 180 times as much thrust as a 1.8 million sec rocket! >Second, any such propulsion system is going to generate waste heat. Yes. >Third, it is fairly likely that the total thermal gain to the ship >is going to be significant, NO MATTER WHICH SPECIFIC DRIVE YOU USE. Yes. >Fourth, the ship will be subjected to this temperature continuously >for extremely long periods of time and will therefore also be subject >to thermal and elastic fatigue. Uh oh. Please don't get temperature and heat confused. High temperatures aren't necessarily dangerous and relatively low temperatures aren't necessarily safe. What's important here is the level of waste heat, and the ship's capacity to reject this heat. If it can't reject the heat fast enough, it will start to heat up and melt/break up/otherwise fail. Now, even without any special effort, a certain amount of waste heat will be naturally rejected via heat radiation. With extra heat rejection equipment, a great deal of heat may be rejected. Thus, as long as the power of the waste heat generated is below that which can be rejected, the ship can operate indefinitely without melting itself. Given that the power of the waste heat will be a certain percentage of the power of the stardrive, this determines the limit on the power of the stardrive. In turn, given the stardrive's thrust/power ratio, this determines a limit on the thrust of the stardrive. The thrust/power ratio of a rocket is roughly 1/(Isp * gee). -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 21:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["730" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "00:10:17" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "21" "Re: RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA28264 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:10:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA28247 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:10:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA16599; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:10:17 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970819000953_110467969@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 729 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:10:17 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/18/97 1:55:50 PM, you wrote: >Kelly, > >Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the Russians successfully initiate a >fusion reaction in a Stellarator in the 70s or 80s? It would seem to me that >a Stellarator is nothing more than a magnetic confinement rocket engine... > >Lee Initiate, is different from maintaining. Lots of magnetic confinement systems have started fusion. But just about none got out more power then they put in, and few could keep the system runing more then a tiny fraction of a secound. Magnetic confinement is considered a NASTY way to try to do this. Comercial concerns have pretty well written it off as unusable (much to the anoyence of U.S. government researchers). Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 21:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5509" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "00:10:53" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "126" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA28386 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:11:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout02.mail.aol.com (emout02.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.93]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA28362 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:11:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout02.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA13385; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:10:53 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970819000958_1883813121@emout02.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5508 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:10:53 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/18/97 9:17:14 AM, you wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/14/97 1:42:21 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: > >>>Well, I make a flat assumption that outside of special circumstances, >>>the waste heat pumped into the ship itself will be a significant >>>percentage of the energy going into the exhaust. (Special circumstances >>>would include isolation from the exhaust and its power source by >>>superconducting coils. Superconductors are inherently capable of >>>doing certain things with seemingly magical 100% efficiency.) > >>>Assuming a .1% percentage, a rocket with a 10:1 thrust/weight ratio >>>and 1 millions sec Isp would be absorbing 10^12 watts/kg in waste >>>heat. Without massive heat rejection systems (which would adversely >>>affect the thrust/weight ratio), that's going to melt the rocket in >>>a fraction of a second. > >>>Therefore I don't consider the Bussard Votage compressions system >>>to truly offer a plausible chance at such high thrust/weight ratios, >>>considering how various components are directly impacted by fusion >>>products (thus implying a significant waste heat problem). > >>Actually the Bussard system use anti-nutronic fuels that convert virtually >>all the power of the fusion reaction into the kinetic energy of the charged >>waste particals. Efficency is about 99.9+%. (give or take). Most of the >>waste can just be vented to the sides. > >However, in order to get the electric energy from it, you propose >terminals which directly contact some of those charged particles. ?? No, You could tap off some energy from the exaust plasma by magnetic fields or the interaction with the compresion feild. You'ld want to avoid direct contact of at all possible. >Even without this assumption, you need to plasmatize the reactants, >and electrically charge them, and you need to create and maintain >the electric potential field. All of these things will not be >100% efficient. True. >>Super couductors arn't quite as majical as you seem to think. They can't >>deal with radiation, heat, have limited load capacities etc. > >I know they aren't all powerful. However, I find what they do do >to be very counterintuitive. > >>I'm also pulzeled why you make such distinctions between other fusion systems >>and your ram fusion system? If anything the dificulty of grabing, fusing, >>and reacting off of fuel blasting at you at relatavistic speeds seems to >>dwarf other fusion systems. Other factors would be similar. > >Primarily because in order to acheive high thrust, I expect the ram >fusion system to be a low Isp rocket drive. In other words, it >would sacrifice exhaust velocity (exhaust velocity difference) >for thrust capability. > >With a normal rocket, you can't do this because your propellant >requirements will blow up exponentially. > >With a ramjet, the requirements go up more modestly. > >That said, the way in which I conceived of this fusion ramjet is >specifically designed to prevent any need for the starship to >funnel any power to or from the main drive. > >>>As for the efficacy of electric field containment for fusion power, >>>I'll admit I haven't read the reference articles on this compressions >>>system, but it seems very optimistic to assume it will even work well >>>enough to break even, much less provide power. > >>I can't follow this. Why do you assume its so dificult? > >Because if it were so easy, it would already be giving us cheap >fusion power. That asumes theirs a market for it. Specifically one big enough to pay for the R&D. Comercial research in exotic power sources, especially ones invoving nuclear, died when the fuel crises evaporated. The system I'm reffering to is agreed (even by the government researchers) to be a more promising design then Magnetic fusion (possibly more then laser fusion). But of course no new research programs are scheduled to be funded. (Mag fusion programs are grand fathered in, but only at minimal levels.) >>Certainly it couldn't require more power then the scoop or >>conventional magnetic confinment systems. > >There are difficulties in dealing with charged plasma, since >the more charged it is, the more it wants to fly apart (even >more). The less charged it is, the more you need a stronger >electric potential difference. Setting up that potential >difference in the right geometry is challenging as well. The geometry for this system is a hollow sphere by the way. >>>When fusion power is acheived, by any method, I'll gladly cheer >>>if I live long enough to see it. But until then, it seems like >>>the more we learn, the more we learn that it's not so easy. > >>Magnetic plasma confinement is a pain, and designs that use it should be >>avoided. But their are several other designs. Laser fusion for example >>developed far ahead of mag-confine while it was under comercial development >>in the '80's. However your suggestions also use complex magnetic fusion >>concepts. So why list them and attack the others? > >Magnetic plasma confinement is a pain, but it is a pain we know. >The technology we do have is mature, so it can be safely used in >speculations of future technology. We can and do acheive fusion >with magnetic confinement. We just don't do it well enough to >acheive sustained fusion. We've acheaved fusion be several means. That doesn't mean they'ld work in a star drive. Or that they are stable. Magnetic confinment is legendary for its instability. Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 21:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2496" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "00:10:55" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "73" "Re: RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA28407 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:11:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout14.mail.aol.com (emout14.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA28381 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:11:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout14.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA14738; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:10:55 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970819001018_-968504446@emout14.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2495 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:10:55 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/18/97 4:25:11 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Just a general observation for everyone to think about...we are doing this >backwards... > >Kelly and Isaac were (are) having a conversation from which this is excerpted: > >>>Assuming a .1% percentage, a rocket with a 10:1 thrust/weight ratio >>>and 1 millions sec Isp would be absorbing 10^12 watts/kg in waste >>>heat. Without massive heat rejection systems (which would adversely >>>affect the thrust/weight ratio), that's going to melt the rocket in >>>a fraction of a second. > >>>Therefore I don't consider the Bussard Votage compressions system >>>to truly offer a plausible chance at such high thrust/weight ratios, >>>considering how various components are directly impacted by fusion >>>products (thus implying a significant waste heat problem). > >>Actually the Bussard system use anti-nutronic fuels that convert virtually >>all the power of the fusion reaction into the kinetic energy of the charged >>waste particals. Efficency is about 99.9+%. (give or take). Most of the >>waste can just be vented to the sides. > >There is a great deal more, but the relevant parts have already been stated. > >First, any sort of rocket propulsion capable of propelling a starship needs an >ISP of about 1 million give or take a few. > >Second, any such propulsion system is going to generate waste heat. > >Third, it is fairly likely that the total thermal gain to the ship is going to > >be significant, NO MATTER WHICH SPECIFIC DRIVE YOU USE. > >Fourth, the ship will be subjected to this temperature continuously for extremely >long periods of time and will therefore also be subject to thermal and elastic > >fatigue. > >There are no metals, alloys, ablatives, or EM fields currently available to deal >with this thermal gain. It will occur with fusion drives, plasma drives, photon > >drives and antimatter drives. It will even occur with Kyle's ZPE drive. So lets >reverse engineer this thing. Start by assuming a particular metal alloy for the > >skin of the ship, determine its melting point, divide by two for a safety margin, >now; what efficiency is NECESSARY in order to get an ISP of 1 million without >exceeding the figure we just arrived at? Can we design a and build a drive to those >requirements? > >Lee Good point but a little misstated. The specific impulse isn't related to the heat load. And the question is what is the heat gain, and the wait of te cooling system. Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 21:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5619" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "00:10:59" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "125" "Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA28459 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:11:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA28446 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:11:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA17084; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:10:59 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970819001027_755982210@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5618 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:10:59 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/18/97 9:46:31 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/14/97 2:19:57 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: > >>>First off, I'm going to view this in terms of the inertial frame of >>>the ship. Thus, the ship has no kinetic energy but the incoming >>>pellets have a lot of kinetic energy. > >>>When the fuel first hits the magnetic field, induced electric fields >>>would heat it up and turn it into plasma. For the most part, this >>>energy is lost forever (because the effective expansion ratio of >>>the magnetic rocket nozzle won't cool the exhaust down to such a low >>>tempurature). > >>>However, once broken down into charged particles, the plasma can >>>be directed with the magnetic fields in an energy conservative >>>way. The electrons in a TV travel at around .75 c, and yet >>>TV tubes don't have to be many times longer than they are wide. >>>You could do the same thing with protons with magnetic fields >>>only a 1000 times stronger than a TV CRT's. > >>Note the mass of the TV tubes deflector magnets in comparison to the mass of >>the beam they are deflecting. Now scale such a system up to handel tons of >>fuel over tens if not hundreds of miles. > >It doesn't scale linearly with the mass of the beam, and the size >doesn't scale up at all. > >For a given magnetic field, the charged particles are deflected into >helical motion with a radius determined by their charge/mass ratio. >This does not go up at all with mass of the beam. > >What does go up is the strength of the opposing magnetic field. And the structural loads. Both are defined by the fuel flow mass and magnets. >>Oh, you forgot the lateral thrust needed to bend the fuel stream, has to be >>countered by a similar force on the ship. Assuming a balenced and centered >>partical streeam (unlikely) that would translate into structural loads on the >>ship and scoop mechanisms. > >The pellet stream will be balanced, because the ship will maneuver as >best it can to keep it centered along the incoming pellets (it can >do so by manipulating the magnetic fields of the nozzle). > >The lateral loads on the scoop is a problem, which is why the mass of >each pellet must be minimized, and the precision of the pellet >shooters maximized. Over interstellar distences? Anyway a multiple projectile stream wouldn't follow a line. It would diverge into a scatter shot. Like a shotgun blast. You couldn't 'follow' the stream to keep it centered. If you could, you wouldn't need a scoop structure. >>>>Ah, but that would ignite the fuel during the point of Max acceleration in >>>>the system. Which would be when it hits the scoop, not when its in the >>>>engine? The fuel would produce nothing but drag. > >>>No it wouldn't. Acceleration isn't the same thing as compression. >>>A magnetic field affects charged particles by making them tend to >>>follow the field lines (actually, they make a helical path around >>>a field line). Thus, compression is caused where field lines >>>get closer together. A ramscoop design uses several coils to >>>generate a magnetic field with field lines converging toward >>>the center. This has the inevitable effect of compressing whatever >>>it scoops up in the center. > >>Since the plasma starts out as frozen particals (high density). The flash >>heating as the pellets slam into the scoop fields would cause uneven inertial >>confinement fusion in the particals as they hit the collector fields. > >I'm pessimistic about how much heating could acheive just from the >flash heating alone. If it's enough to initiate fusion, then so much >the better--it saves the trouble of doing so magnetically. The >kinetic energy from the fusion is still in the products and will >still be there when the pass through the magnetic nozzle. No the energy would be released in the scop system ahead of the ship. The thrust would not wait until the exaust stream to materialize. At best you'ld creat a lot of drag, rather then thrust. >This assumes the products don't fly forward fast enough to overcome >the initial backwards velocity they had. In that case, a pellet >can be merely plasmatized with an initial, low strength magnetic >field far forward of the main ramscoop. Gas pressure and the >expanding magnetic field lines from behind this field will expand >the plasma puff down to a level which can be scooped up without >initiating fusion. > >>>I assume we can magnetically control ultra hot plasmas because we _can_ >>>and _do_ control ultra hot plasmas. Demonstrating fusion in a magnetic >>>confinement research reactor like Tokomak is routine. Demonstrating >>>_sustained_ fusion isn't (obviously). That's why I'm so much more >>>optomistic about pulsed fusion. > >>>Anyway, magnetic confinement is a very mature technology, thanks to >>>millions upon millions of dollars worth of research over the last >>>several decades. At least we're already familiar with it and its >>>technical pitfalls. > >>Actually stable magnetic confinement of dense high energy plasma streams is >>the critical failure in our magnetic fusion research. Since its the brick >>wall we can't get past now, why are you so confident that its the easiest >>tech for a future rocket system? > >_Stable_ magnetic confinement beyond what we can already acheive is >unnecessary for pulsed fusion designs, of which this ramjet is one. Given the power levels we'ld need for these ships you'ld need a prety continuous flow of a lot of fuel mass. I doubt you can assume the magnetic fields would have time to stabalize out. From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 21:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1525" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "00:11:23" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "35" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA28499 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:11:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout02.mail.aol.com (emout02.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.93]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA28488 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 21:11:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout02.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA13639; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:11:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970819001030_1186238594@emout02.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1524 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:11:23 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/18/97 8:44:27 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: ---- >>>>You suggest the acceleration of a pellet happens almost instantaniously by >>>>some plasma expansion. I wonder, won't the launcer blow apart? > >>>I didn't specify, but the plasma pusher is pushed forward using >>>a rail gun design. Easier to get high muzzle velocities this way >>>than with other methods. Compared to a TNT detonation, this is >>>a gentle push. > >>True, but even if it is a gentle push compared to a TNT detonation, it >>likely is still a big bang. What do you suggest is the mass of the pellet >>you want to accelerate? > >Very small. Anyway, I'm no expert on electromagnetic railgun designs, >but plenty of real scientists doing real research on actual railguns >are, and some of them even have web pages. Search Yahoo! with >"electromagnetic railgun". There are a lot of cool things out there. > >Particularly pertinent to this discussion is research into hydrogen >pellet accelerators for magnetic fusion reactor fueling, since these >same pellets would be ideal for the fusion ramjet I'm proposing. >Muzzle velocities of over 3km/s have been demonstrated, but I >suggest thinking in terms of only 1km/s or so because the fuel packets >will ideally have a lightweight railgun with a limited power supply >(on board fission and/or collection panels for ship based beamed >power). ?? Ah, given the speeds of the ships were talking about we'ld need muzzel velocities of 100,000 km/s to launch the pellets. From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 18 22:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["604" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "00:34:57" "-0500" "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" "hous0042@tc.umn.edu" nil "16" "starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA16695 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 22:44:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id WAA16686 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 22:44:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pub-17-b-150.dialup.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Tue, 19 Aug 97 00:43:59 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33F93081.7893@tc.umn.edu> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 603 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Sender: owner-starship-design To: Starship design group Subject: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ? Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 00:34:57 -0500 Hey, here's a thought... 1) give the fuel pellets a net positive charge. 2) accelerate the pellets with magnetic and electrical means 3) launch the fuel so that the fastest part is launched first. 4) as the ship launches, beam electrons at it. 5) make the "Sail" large enough to catch all the electrons (to keep them from re-combining with the fuel pellets) -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 07:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3236" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "09:59:14" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "74" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA05798 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 07:58:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA05768 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 07:58:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA08299; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 09:59:14 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708191459.AA08299@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970819000958_1883813121@emout02.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 19, 97 00:10:53 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3235 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 09:59:14 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/18/97 9:17:14 AM, you wrote: >>>>As for the efficacy of electric field containment for fusion power, >>>>I'll admit I haven't read the reference articles on this compressions >>>>system, but it seems very optimistic to assume it will even work well >>>>enough to break even, much less provide power. >>>I can't follow this. Why do you assume its so dificult? >>Because if it were so easy, it would already be giving us cheap >>fusion power. >That asumes theirs a market for it. Specifically one big enough to pay for >the R&D. Comercial research in exotic power sources, especially ones >invoving nuclear, died when the fuel crises evaporated. At the very least, this means that there is a significant R&D cost associated with it. However, the potential profit is so great, that the perceived risk must also be great for commercial concerns to avoid it. (The perceived risk being that even after all that R&D it won't work.) >The system I'm reffering to is agreed (even by the government researchers) to >be a more promising design then Magnetic fusion (possibly more then laser >fusion). But of course no new research programs are scheduled to be funded. > (Mag fusion programs are grand fathered in, but only at minimal levels.) I personally think magnetic target fusion offers the brightest potential (it's a pulsed fusion concept), but even so the concept is too new and the technology too immature to bank on it. The numbers look a _lot_ more acheivable than either magnetic confinement or inertial confinement. >>>Certainly it couldn't require more power then the scoop or >>>conventional magnetic confinment systems. >>There are difficulties in dealing with charged plasma, since >>the more charged it is, the more it wants to fly apart (even >>more). The less charged it is, the more you need a stronger >>electric potential difference. Setting up that potential >>difference in the right geometry is challenging as well. >The geometry for this system is a hollow sphere by the way. Huh? A conductive hollow sphere cannot generate an electric potential gradient inside it. You'd have to inject electrons into the center in order to attract the (positively charged) fuel particles to it, and rely on the charge of those electrons alone to acheive compression. Much better to have a hyperbolic electric charge potential trap (along with the injected electrons to increase the potential difference). But tell me if I'm missing something. >>Magnetic plasma confinement is a pain, but it is a pain we know. >>The technology we do have is mature, so it can be safely used in >>speculations of future technology. We can and do acheive fusion >>with magnetic confinement. We just don't do it well enough to >>acheive sustained fusion. >We've acheaved fusion be several means. That doesn't mean they'ld work in a >star drive. Or that they are stable. Magnetic confinment is legendary for >its instability. Yes, which is why I only consider pulsed fusion possibilities. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 08:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["6123" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "10:44:57" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "143" "Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA17593 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:44:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA17582 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:44:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA10468; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:44:58 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708191544.AA10468@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970819001027_755982210@emout20.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 19, 97 00:10:59 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 6122 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:44:57 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/18/97 9:46:31 AM, >kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>Note the mass of the TV tubes deflector magnets in comparison >>>to the mass of the beam they are deflecting. Now scale such >>>a system up to handel tons of fuel over tens if not hundreds >>>of miles. >>It doesn't scale linearly with the mass of the beam, and the size >>doesn't scale up at all. [...] >>What does go up is the strength of the opposing magnetic field. >And the structural loads. Both are defined by the fuel flow mass and >magnets. Yes, that too. However, TV tubes aren't limited by either the strength of the opposing magnetic field nor structural loads from deflecting the measly electron beams. Neither criteria is appropriate for the "scaling up a TV tube" factor. Only the radius of curvature of the beam deflection is a shared factor, and as I said before, this doesn't scale with the flow mass at all. The seriousness of the structural loads will have much to do with how off-center the fuel pellets are. >>The pellet stream will be balanced, because the ship will maneuver as >>best it can to keep it centered along the incoming pellets (it can >>do so by manipulating the magnetic fields of the nozzle). >>The lateral loads on the scoop is a problem, which is why the mass of >>each pellet must be minimized, and the precision of the pellet >>shooters maximized. >Over interstellar distences? Do I have to repeat myself? The pellet shooters are installed on the fuel packets. The fuel packets are accelerated to relativistic velocities with constant course corrections during the acceleration run so that they arrive near the target system with an error of 10km or less. They then shoot pellets along a track to intercept the starship's ramscoop with the pellet shooter, which has a muzzle velocity of around 1km/s (easily enough to make up for a 10km error in the packet's position). These fuel packets are a big tank of fuel pellets along with a relatively small fission power supply and a pellet shooter. Considering the plasma dynamic accelerator acheives a muzzle velocity of 80km/s in a few centimeters, a 1km/s muzzle velocity pellet shooter shouldn't have to be very big. >Anyway a multiple projectile stream wouldn't follow a line. It would diverge >into a scatter shot. Like a shotgun blast. You couldn't 'follow' the stream >to keep it centered. If you could, you wouldn't need a scoop structure. Each fuel packet is responsible for laying down quite a lenth of track. Assuming a length of 100km and a muzzle velocity of 1km/s, that means firing pellets with at least 50sec between firing and interception (probably much more, depending on how long it takes for the pellet shooter to fire the entire load of fuel pellets). It would be naive to think that at even 100km a pellet gun could hit a bullseye. >>>Since the plasma starts out as frozen particals (high density). The flash >>>heating as the pellets slam into the scoop fields would cause uneven >inertial >>>confinement fusion in the particals as they hit the collector fields. >>I'm pessimistic about how much heating could acheive just from the >>flash heating alone. If it's enough to initiate fusion, then so much >>the better--it saves the trouble of doing so magnetically. The >>kinetic energy from the fusion is still in the products and will >>still be there when the pass through the magnetic nozzle. >No the energy would be released in the scop system ahead of the ship. This is just fine. The energy is still in increased kinetic energy of the particles, which are still funnelled along the magnetic lines of the ramscoop. It will still be turned into extra forward thrust when the magnetic nozzle directs those products rearward. You have to look at this in terms of the inertial frame of the starship, because that is where the magnetic field of the ramjet are conservative. Anyway, I must repeat that I really doubt the flash heating alone could initiate fusion. As I said before, there is no compression. It's not like the front part of the pellet suddenly hits a brick wall of magnetic field while the rear part of the pellet slams into it--only the differential between the strength of the magnetic field encountered by the front part and the rear part is significant, and this is minimized by having a small pellet. If you look at inertial confinement concepts, you see that the primary purpose of the lasers impacting the fuel pellet is to _compress_ the pellet, at which point it heats up due to the compression. Even in H-bombs, the way to acheive high yields is by using the fission bomb to implode the fusion warhead (which heats it up to fusion levels). >>_Stable_ magnetic confinement beyond what we can already acheive is >>unnecessary for pulsed fusion designs, of which this ramjet is one. >Given the power levels we'ld need for these ships you'ld need a prety >continuous flow of a lot of fuel mass. I doubt you can assume the magnetic >fields would have time to stabalize out. It depends on what you mean by "continuous". For purposes of being a pulsed fusion system where each pulse has no significant effect on the next, let's say only one pellet is processed through the ramscoop at a time. Let's say each pellet is 1g, the ramscoop is 1km long, and the current relative speed to the pellets is .1 c. That still implies a mass rate of 300kg/s. Assuming the added velocity is merely 100km/s (equivalent to 10,000 secs Isp), the thrust provided is 30,000,000 newtons. If the starship is 10,000,000kg, then this thrust provides .3 gees. In practice, 10 pellets at a time would still be separated by 100m each, effectively separating their reactions from each other while evenning out the loads on the starship. That would provide 3 gees acceleration. Also, pellet separation will be larger at velocities greater than .1 c. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 08:49 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1585" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "10:50:32" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "34" "Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA18783 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:49:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA18761 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:49:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA10740; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:50:32 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708191550.AA10740@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970819001030_1186238594@emout02.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 19, 97 00:11:23 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1584 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: We need to get on the same (pellet) track first Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:50:32 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/18/97 8:44:27 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>Particularly pertinent to this discussion is research into hydrogen >>pellet accelerators for magnetic fusion reactor fueling, since these >>same pellets would be ideal for the fusion ramjet I'm proposing. >>Muzzle velocities of over 3km/s have been demonstrated, but I >>suggest thinking in terms of only 1km/s or so because the fuel packets >>will ideally have a lightweight railgun with a limited power supply >>(on board fission and/or collection panels for ship based beamed >>power). >?? Ah, given the speeds of the ships were talking about we'ld need muzzel >velocities of 100,000 km/s to launch the pellets. No, for a few reasons: 1. Over 150,000km/s is needed to catch up with a .5 cruising starship. 2. A railgun launcher probably couldn't be built big enough to acheive 100,000km/s muzzle velocities anyway. Remember? 3. Thus, you'd need some other way to acheive the 150,000km/s+ velocities (I propose RPB magsail propulsion, but laser sails are another possibility). 4. The railguns are used for the pellet shooters. There isn't any hard lower limit on the muzzle velocity needed, other than being able to lay down a long enough segment of track in a reasonable amount of time. I think rate-of-fire will have more of an impact than muzzle velocity. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 08:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1006" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "08:58:26" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "21" "starship-design: Impact Fusion" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA21534 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:58:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA21521 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:58:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id IAA00237; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:58:25 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id IAA14994; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:58:26 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708191558.IAA14994@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1005 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Impact Fusion Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:58:26 -0700 As long as we're talking about super fast fuel pellets, forget about catching them and then using them to make fusion. If the pellets are going fast enough (30km/s is the number I seem to remember) and if you can direct them into a strong, conical enclosure, then the fuel's kinetic energy will be able to compress/heat the fuel itself as it's squeezed down at the tip of the cone, and you'll get fusion power. The problem with the technique on Earth is that it's nearly impossible to get those pellet speeds without ripping it apart. But if we're already talking about huge relative velocities, the key speed wouldn't be how fast you could shoot the pellet (you could still use 1km/sec muzzle velocities) it would be the relative speed between the fuel launcher and the ship, which could easily be 30km/s or more. As for what the ship design would look like... I don't know. A big mesh of super-strong, high-precision conical depressions? I'll pass this one off to the engineers. Ken Wharton From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 10:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4908" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "19:55:31" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "102" "starship-design: Blackhole, Railgun and superconductor" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA01734 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:57:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA01720 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:57:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x0sVm-000G8gC; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:56:10 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4907 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Blackhole, Railgun and superconductor Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:55:31 +0100 Hi Isaac, >>I wonder though what momentum per unit of mass both designs would give you. >>The problem with using a blackhole is likely has to be too heavy to produce >>a usable amount of energy. As a result the "engine" would be much heavier >>than the fuel. > >Actually, black holes produce _more_ energy the smaller they are. >In fact, if you don't keep feeding it, it will explosively evaporate >away. Playing around with small black holes makes letting Calvin >play with a flame thrower indoors look positively safe. Are you sure about black holes producing more energy the smaller they are? I've heard that they evaporate faster and faster, but that's only because the surface:volume ratio gets bigger. I'd guess the total evaporated energy gets less if the surface gets less. But indeed if you would have 1000 small holes instead of 1 big with the same total mass, you'd probably be better of with the 1000 small holes. >>True, but even if it is a gentle push compared to a TNT detonation, it >>likely is still a big bang. What do you suggest is the mass of the pellet >>you want to accelerate? > >Very small. Anyway, I'm no expert on electromagnetic railgun designs, >but plenty of real scientists doing real research on actual railguns >are, and some of them even have web pages. Search Yahoo! with >"electromagnetic railgun". There are a lot of cool things out there. I will do so... >Particularly pertinent to this discussion is research into hydrogen >pellet accelerators for magnetic fusion reactor fueling, since these >same pellets would be ideal for the fusion ramjet I'm proposing. >Muzzle velocities of over 3km/s have been demonstrated, but I >suggest thinking in terms of only 1km/s or so because the fuel packets >will ideally have a lightweight railgun with a limited power supply >(on board fission and/or collection panels for ship based beamed >power). Like Kelly mentioned, these velocities of 0.00001c are not near to what we like. Especially not near to the velocities we need for the deceleration track. I'm afraid that you/we need to work hard on the pellet beaming part. >>It might be interesting to do some rough calculations. If we'd catch 1 kg of >>hydrogen ions that means 6.2E26 ions and a current of 1E8 Ampere. >>That current alone would generate non trivial magnetic fields. On the other >>hand we would have a similar amount of electrons that go the same direction >>(however likely along the outside of the ship). > >Your analysis is flawed because the electrons would travel along with >the ions. It would be very nice if we could somehow convince the >electrons and nuclei to somehow part from each other, because then >electric fields could be used to manipulate them as well as magnetic >fields. > >However, they're rather stuck on each other because of their >opposing electric charge. True, I forgot that. >Anyway, the sort of pulsed fusion I'm proposing is similar to >magnetic target fusion, which requires starting densities of >10^18 nuclei per cm^3. The specifics of the plasmatizing of >the pellet would determine what mass of pellet is needed. >I'm not familiar enough with the factors involved to make a >good assessment of that part. Knowing that our engine will be several magnitudes larger than any magnetic fusion proposal you've heard of; Can you estimate what the change in magnetic fieldstrength would need to be? >>>>A more practical question: How are the superconducting magnets kept from >>>>blowing up? The charged particles that fly trough the magnets will create a >>>>magnetic flux. Normally as long as the particle flies trough without >>>>velocity gain, the superconducting magnets will have the same current before >>>>and after the particle flew trough. But in the ramjet design the particles >>>>will exit faster than they arrived and thus will leave a non-zero flux. >>>>I do know little about how superconductors are given a current and a >>>>magnetic field, so the above question is more likely a result of not knowing >>>>then of doubting the design. >>> >>>The superconductors resist any change in the magnetic field, which >>>is one of the ways they are so different from normal conductors. >> >>If I understand correctly, the way that they resist that change in magnetic >>field is by changing the current inside the superconductor. >>In the situation explained above, the current would rise more and more until >>the current would become too high and break down the special properties of >>the superconductor. > >Yes, but since the magnetic field they are resisting is only momentary, >so is the opposing electric current. It doesn't build up. Momentarily? Having a pulsed engine doesn't change things. Instead of increasing constantly, the current in the superconductor will increase with steps. If it has nothing to do with a pulsed engine, then you have to explain to me why it is momentarily. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 10:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["368" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "19:55:35" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "21" "Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA01886 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:58:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA01862 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:58:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x0sVq-000G8rC; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:56:14 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 367 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ? Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:55:35 +0100 Hi Kevin, You had a thought: >1) give the fuel pellets a net positive charge. To accelerate the pellets by electrical means? >2) accelerate the pellets with magnetic and electrical means >3) launch the fuel so that the fastest part is launched first. Why? >4) as the ship launches, beam electrons at it. To make the ship attractive for the pellets? Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 10:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1164" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "19:55:37" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "27" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA02042 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:58:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA02018 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:58:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x0sVs-000G90C; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:56:16 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1163 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:55:37 +0100 Kyle, >Causality violation: >Stephen Hawking has speculated that at FTL speeds, particle-antiparticle >anhialations dampen out chronal distortions, thus preventing causality >violation. Perhaps FTL IS allowed in this way, preventing causality >violation. In effect, the "naughty" part of your trip is prevented from >creating CV's since it is hidden behind an event horizon. I still don't understand why FTL creates causality problems. FTL doesn't mean going back in time, it just means that you can get a places before others can. For that matter you can't kill your mother before you are born even if you can travel FTL. >P.S: If two objects APPROACH, each one travelling .99C, what is their >combined velocity of approach? Is this done the same way as the regular >velocity addition? Ken gave you the relative velocity, which is what a person on one of the objects would measure. For an observer to wich one objects is coming from the right with 0.99c and one from the left with 0.99c, it is just a matter of normal addition: The objects close eachother with 1.98c (If they are 1.98 lightsecond apart, it will take 1 second untill they collide.) Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 11:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1154" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "11:02:26" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "21" "starship-design: Blackhole, Railgun and superconductor" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA03120 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:02:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA03089 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:02:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA14989; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:01:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA05842; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:02:26 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708191802.LAA05842@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1153 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Blackhole, Railgun and superconductor Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:02:26 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > >Actually, black holes produce _more_ energy the smaller they are. > >In fact, if you don't keep feeding it, it will explosively evaporate > >away. Playing around with small black holes makes letting Calvin > >play with a flame thrower indoors look positively safe. > > Are you sure about black holes producing more energy the smaller they are? > I've heard that they evaporate faster and faster, but that's only because > the surface:volume ratio gets bigger. I'd guess the total evaporated energy > gets less if the surface gets less. > But indeed if you would have 1000 small holes instead of 1 big with the same > total mass, you'd probably be better of with the 1000 small holes. I believe Isaac is right about this. Very small black holes evaporate rapidly, to the point of being violently explosive. The evaporation rate is a function of the gravity gradient at the event horizon, which goes asymptotic as the mass of the hole approaches zero. Imagine the energy release from a few hundred tons of mass turning into a spray of high-energy subatomic particles within a tiny fraction of a second. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 11:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2697" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "11:18:08" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "53" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA09023 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:18:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA09009 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:18:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA16981; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:16:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA05882; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:18:08 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708191818.LAA05882@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2696 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:18:08 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > Kyle, > > >Causality violation: > >Stephen Hawking has speculated that at FTL speeds, particle-antiparticle > >anhialations dampen out chronal distortions, thus preventing causality > >violation. Perhaps FTL IS allowed in this way, preventing causality > >violation. In effect, the "naughty" part of your trip is prevented from > >creating CV's since it is hidden behind an event horizon. > > I still don't understand why FTL creates causality problems. FTL doesn't > mean going back in time, it just means that you can get a places before > others can. For that matter you can't kill your mother before you are born > even if you can travel FTL. Since you can do it, Timothy, do a Lorentz transformation on a FTL worldline. Note that for certain relative velocities the FTL worldline swings from traveling forward in time to traveling backward in time, or even for a particular sublight relative velocity appears to represent infinite speed. If you have a collection of events connected by worldlines representing velocities less than or equal to c, then all observers at any relative velocity to those events will agree on the time ordering of the events, if not the time intervals between them. If there are events connected by FTL worldlines, they can no longer agree on the time ordering, and hence they will not agree on the causal order of events. This is neatly summarized (with diagrams) in _Spacetime Physics_ (chapter L, I believe). So far as I know, causality is not a derived principle in physics, but merely an assumption; no one has proven that causal ordering has to happen as a consequence of currently known physical laws. However, it appears to be a pretty good assumption, since no violations of causality have been observed. I wouldn't be surprised if someone eventually does derive causality, though. > >P.S: If two objects APPROACH, each one travelling .99C, what is their > >combined velocity of approach? Is this done the same way as the regular > >velocity addition? > > Ken gave you the relative velocity, which is what a person on one of the > objects would measure. For an observer to wich one objects is coming from > the right with 0.99c and one from the left with 0.99c, it is just a matter > of normal addition: The objects close eachother with 1.98c (If they are 1.98 > lightsecond apart, it will take 1 second untill they collide.) Relative velocity is a frame-dependent notion. Ken's answer is correct in the frame of either object given the measured velocities in a third frame. Your answer is correct in the frame in which both objects are seen to travel at 0.99c in opposite directions. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 12:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["334" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "21:26:20" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "13" "starship-design: Railgun" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA02699 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 12:26:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA02633 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 12:26:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-007.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x0tvd-000GVZC; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 21:26:57 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 333 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Railgun Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 21:26:20 +0100 Isaac, I made the following remarks: Like Kelly mentioned, these velocities of 0.00001c are not near to what we like. Especially not near to the velocities we need for the deceleration track. I'm afraid that you/we need to work hard on the pellet beaming part. Since you've answered them by now, you can leave them out. Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 16:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["973" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "17:46:30" "-0500" "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" "hous0042@tc.umn.edu" nil "43" "Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA06802 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 16:40:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA06791 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 16:40:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pub-16-b-34.dialup.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Tue, 19 Aug 97 18:40:12 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33FA2246.323E@tc.umn.edu> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 972 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Sender: owner-starship-design To: Starship design group Subject: Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ? Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:46:30 -0500 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > Hi Kevin, > > You had a thought: yeah, and it almost died of lonliness ;) > > >1) give the fuel pellets a net positive charge. > > To accelerate the pellets by electrical means? Yes, partly, but also to help the ship draw them in. > > >2) accelerate the pellets with magnetic and electrical means > >3) launch the fuel so that the fastest part is launched first. > > Why? so that at any given moment, the fuel is in front of the ship, and the electron beam is behind it. > > >4) as the ship launches, beam electrons at it. > > To make the ship attractive for the pellets? Also to have an energy input and to cancel the net positive charge you would be accumulating. > > Timothy -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 17:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["996" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "19:03:19" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "31" "RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA28848 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:51:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA28821 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:51:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p38.gnt.com [204.49.68.243]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA03057 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:51:25 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:51:25 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCACD9.46DCFDE0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 29 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 995 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:03:19 -0500 Kelly, > Good point but a little misstated. The specific impulse isn't related to the > heat load. And the question is what is the heat gain, and the wait of te > cooling system. Sorry, the poor takeoff wasn't intentional. I was just trying to draw attention to the fact that there would be some heat from the exhaust and just how much really needs to be addressed. Your (or Isaacs) introduction was all I had to start with. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Two people are traveling in a balloon over a landscape unknown to them. "Where are we?" one calls down to a passerby. The passerby looks carefully at them and finally yells back, "You're on a balloon!" "He must be a mathematician," says one of the travelers to the other. "Why is that?" "First, he thought awhile before answering. Second, his answer is absolutely precise. And third, it's utterly useless." From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 17:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1994" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "15:46:36" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "43" "RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA28845 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA28820 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:51:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p38.gnt.com [204.49.68.243]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA03051 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:51:21 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:51:18 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCACD9.42BD1560.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 41 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1993 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 15:46:36 -0500 Kelly, > Initiate, is different from maintaining. Lots of magnetic confinement > systems have started fusion. But just about none got out more power then > they put in, and few could keep the system runing more then a tiny fraction > of a secound. Magnetic confinement is considered a NASTY way to try to do > this. Comercial concerns have pretty well written it off as unusable (much > to the anoyence of U.S. government researchers). Gee, it has been a long time since I thought about this particular concept. I was not aware/did not know the status of stellarator research, I just sort of half remembered it from years ago. IF I remember correctly, a "stellarator" was sort of a hybrid pinch/confinement/accelerator concept that was never even designed to generate continuous sustained fusion. It was simply a research tool to INITIATE a fusion burn long enough to gain additional information to design more capable reactors. My thought however, is that a stellerator could be easily improved using TODAY'S technology to produce a continuous reaction just as long as we keep stuffing fuel down the accelerator end. This could be used for a Bussard ramjet, a pellet track, both, whatever... An unrelated comment: in a previous discussion on another thread you were discussing heat gain. Someone said something to the effect that we would have to physically tap the exhaust stream for power and that this would create some sort of weak point for excess heat transfer (I know I am paraphrasing and I may even be misremembering). There is absolutely know need for ANY physical connection to the exhaust stream. It can be tapped for power easily and simply using MHD. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- "Science has 'explained' nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness." -- Aldous Huxley, 1925 From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 19 17:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4424" "Tue" "19" "August" "1997" "19:50:40" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "99" "RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA28876 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:51:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA28850 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:51:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p38.gnt.com [204.49.68.243]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA03078 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:51:30 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:51:29 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCACD9.48FDBB00.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 97 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4423 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 19:50:40 -0500 Isaac, > Well, the "pellet track ramjet" (I'm finally giving it a name) could > have a much lower Isp. Assuming a velocity stream acceleration of > merely 100km/s (equivalent to 10,000 secs Isp) and a final velocity of > .5c, each pellet track needs to be 1,500 times the mass of the > starship. I will grant that there is a difference between ISP and acceleration and that it is possible to get more acceleration from a lower ISP engine but only at the cost of more propellant mass. > That may sound like a lot, but it compares very favorably to a > traditional rocket--even a 1.8 million sec Isp rocket requires > a mass ratio of 15,000 in order to accelerate to .5 c (I assume > it can be refueled for deceleration en route). I wasn't picking 1 million as an ISP for any particular reason other than the fact that it had already been mentioned. If it were up to me, I would be using something capable of at least 500 gravities continuous acceleration with no inertial force at all (hey, I want to get there, NOW). Unfortunately, this is the real world and even drives with an ISP of 1 million sec are a matter of fiction...BTW, how are you going to refuel? > Also, a 1.8 million sec Isp rocket is 50% of the ideal fusion > drive, and just a pipe dream now. 10,000 sec Isp ion drives > exist _today_, even though they are low thrust. I don't consider a fusion drive to be ideal unless you can figure out how to overcome inertia, in which case, to quote someone else recently, a flashlight will do just fine. > Critically, a lower Isp rocket generates proportionately more > thrust for a given power level. Assuming the same power > level, a 10,000 sec ramjet would produce 180 times as much > thrust as a 1.8 million sec rocket! Isaac, I'm surprised at you, everyone knows that there is a difference between thrust and ISP. Just because a particular drive can generate more thrust is irrelevant and you know it. HOW much mass did you have to expend to do that is the question, unless you can increase the ISP SIGNIFICANTLY, there isn't enough mass in the universe to get even one starship up to near light speed. If you don't want to take my word for it I will be happy to furnish you with a link to NASA's Basic Spaceflight 101 web page... > Uh oh. Please don't get temperature and heat confused. High > temperatures aren't necessarily dangerous and relatively low > temperatures aren't necessarily safe. > > What's important here is the level of waste heat, and the ship's > capacity to reject this heat. If it can't reject the heat fast > enough, it will start to heat up and melt/break up/otherwise fail. I wasn't doing any such thing. I said THERMAL and ELASTIC. Ask any nuclear engineer what happens to metals that are exposed to high temperatures for long periods of time, they get BRITTLE. A similar effect is observed at low temperatures although the cause is a little different. I didn't even get into the RADIATION aspect of it, but that only makes it even worse. > Now, even without any special effort, a certain amount of waste > heat will be naturally rejected via heat radiation. With extra > heat rejection equipment, a great deal of heat may be rejected. Not true, you can't reject heat uphill, against a gradient. What will happen is it will radiate alright, INTO the ship. Thus, as long as the power of the waste heat generated is below that which can be rejected, the ship can operate indefinitely without melting itself. IBID Given that the power of the waste heat will be a certain percentage of the power of the stardrive, this determines the limit on the power of the stardrive. In turn, given the stardrive's thrust/power ratio, this determines a limit on the thrust of the stardrive. Well, that is true, which was my point, the maximum output of the stardrive is a function of the efficiency of the stardrive. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- HOW TO COOK AN EGG -- Physics Edition "If you tie one of these eggs to the end of a string and whirl it round rapidly, and suddenly stop, the movement may perhaps be converted into heat, and then . . ." "And then the egg will be cooked?" "Yes, if the rotation has been swift enough. But how do you get the stoppage without breaking the egg?" -- Jules Verne, The School for Crusoes From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 04:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3679" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "06:37:55" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "75" "Re: starship-design: Blackhole, Railgun and superconductor" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA23553 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 04:37:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id EAA23541 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 04:37:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA20706; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 06:37:56 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708201137.AA20706@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 19, 97 07:55:31 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3678 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Blackhole, Railgun and superconductor Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 06:37:55 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >>Particularly pertinent to this discussion is research into hydrogen >>pellet accelerators for magnetic fusion reactor fueling, since these >>same pellets would be ideal for the fusion ramjet I'm proposing. >>Muzzle velocities of over 3km/s have been demonstrated, but I >>suggest thinking in terms of only 1km/s or so because the fuel packets >>will ideally have a lightweight railgun with a limited power supply >>(on board fission and/or collection panels for ship based beamed >>power). >Like Kelly mentioned, these velocities of 0.00001c are not near to what we >like. Especially not near to the velocities we need for the deceleration track. >I'm afraid that you/we need to work hard on the pellet beaming part. I already mentionned in another reply what the deal with the muzzle velocities was. Anyway, the thing which makes current fusion pellet research applicable is that it precisely addresses the problem of accelerating a frozen hydrogen pellet with a puff of hot plasma in a railgun. That's the sort of thing which on the face of it sounds dubious. >>Anyway, the sort of pulsed fusion I'm proposing is similar to >>magnetic target fusion, which requires starting densities of >>10^18 nuclei per cm^3. The specifics of the plasmatizing of >>the pellet would determine what mass of pellet is needed. >>I'm not familiar enough with the factors involved to make a >>good assessment of that part. >Knowing that our engine will be several magnitudes larger than any magnetic >fusion proposal you've heard of; Can you estimate what the change in >magnetic fieldstrength would need to be? I don't know. I'm sure a plasma physicist would be able to pull off a BOE calculation in minutes, but I don't know what the most important factors would be. >>>>>A more practical question: How are the superconducting magnets kept from >>>>>blowing up? The charged particles that fly trough the magnets will create a >>>>>magnetic flux. Normally as long as the particle flies trough without >>>>>velocity gain, the superconducting magnets will have the same current before >>>>>and after the particle flew trough. But in the ramjet design the particles >>>>>will exit faster than they arrived and thus will leave a non-zero flux. >>>>>I do know little about how superconductors are given a current and a >>>>>magnetic field, so the above question is more likely a result of not knowing >>>>>then of doubting the design. >>>>The superconductors resist any change in the magnetic field, which >>>>is one of the ways they are so different from normal conductors. >>>If I understand correctly, the way that they resist that change in magnetic >>>field is by changing the current inside the superconductor. >>>In the situation explained above, the current would rise more and more until >>>the current would become too high and break down the special properties of >>>the superconductor. >>Yes, but since the magnetic field they are resisting is only momentary, >>so is the opposing electric current. It doesn't build up. >Momentarily? Having a pulsed engine doesn't change things. Instead of >increasing constantly, the current in the superconductor will increase with >steps. >If it has nothing to do with a pulsed engine, then you have to explain to me >why it is momentarily. It is momentary because the magnetic field generated by any bit of plasma goes away once that plasma goes away. It doesn't have anything to do with it being pulsed or not. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 04:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["724" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "06:51:56" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "18" "Re: RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA24811 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 04:51:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id EAA24794 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 04:51:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA21005; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 06:51:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708201151.AA21005@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCACD9.42BD1560.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 19, 97 03:46:36 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 723 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 06:51:56 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >My thought however, is that a stellerator could be easily improved using >TODAY'S technology to produce a continuous reaction just as long as we keep >stuffing fuel down the accelerator end. This could be used for a >Bussard ramjet, a pellet track, both, whatever... If it were that easy, it would be done soon. In fact, it would since current spheromak designs are basically plumped up stellerators. However, the same instability problems which plague other magnetic confinement fusion reactors still apply. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 05:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1914" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "07:05:42" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "50" "Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA26129 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 05:04:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA26120 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 05:04:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA21332; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 07:05:43 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708201205.AA21332@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <33FA2246.323E@tc.umn.edu> from "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" at Aug 19, 97 05:46:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1913 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ? Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 07:05:42 -0500 (CDT) Kevin 'Tex' Houston wrote: >Timothy van der Linden wrote: >> Hi Kevin, >> You had a thought: >yeah, and it almost died of lonliness ;) I lost my e-mail, but anyway I don't understand the context. Is this about the acceleration or deceleration run? IMO, we should really concentrate on the deceleration run, because almost everything that can be used for the deceleration run can be used for the acceleration run just as well, but not vice versa. >> >1) give the fuel pellets a net positive charge. >> To accelerate the pellets by electrical means? >Yes, partly, but also to help the ship draw them in. >> >2) accelerate the pellets with magnetic and electrical means Keep in mind that there's a real limit to how fast you can accelerate these pellets with an e-m launcher. Besides the serious problem of heating up the pellet, the length of a launcher increases with the square of the desired muzzle velocity (assuming no friction losses). For instance, suppose a 10cm e-m launcher can acheive 100km/s. In order to acheive 100,000km/s, a launcher would have to be 1,000,000 times as long, or 100,000km long. And that's assuming no friction or other speed related losses. >> >3) launch the fuel so that the fastest part is launched first. >so that at any given moment, the fuel is in front of the ship, and the >electron beam is behind it. >> >4) as the ship launches, beam electrons at it. >> To make the ship attractive for the pellets? >Also to have an energy input and to cancel the net positive charge you >would be accumulating. A problem with charged pellets, and especially an electron beam, is that they will be deflected by magnetic fields, making aiming them very difficult near the solar system. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 05:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5250" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "07:35:03" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "120" "Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA29642 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 05:34:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA29632 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 05:34:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA22175; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 07:35:04 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708201235.AA22175@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCACD9.48FDBB00.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 19, 97 07:50:40 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5249 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 07:35:03 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Isaac, >> Well, the "pellet track ramjet" (I'm finally giving it a name) could >> have a much lower Isp. Assuming a velocity stream acceleration of >> merely 100km/s (equivalent to 10,000 secs Isp) and a final velocity of >> .5c, each pellet track needs to be 1,500 times the mass of the >> starship. >I will grant that there is a difference between ISP and acceleration and >that it is possible to get more acceleration from a lower ISP engine but >only at the cost of more propellant mass. Yes, but more propellant mass is, in and of itself, not a problem. It's a question of how _much_ more propellant is needed. Because normal rockets have exponentially growing propellant needs, you just can't afford to have an Isp too much less than delta-v/gee. A ramjet's propellant needs don't grow so badly, so a _much_ lower Isp is practical. >> That may sound like a lot, but it compares very favorably to a >> traditional rocket--even a 1.8 million sec Isp rocket requires >> a mass ratio of 15,000 in order to accelerate to .5 c (I assume >> it can be refueled for deceleration en route). >I wasn't picking 1 million as an ISP for any particular reason other than >the fact that it had already been mentioned. The reason has to do with the rocket equation and the desire for relativistic speeds. >> Critically, a lower Isp rocket generates proportionately more >> thrust for a given power level. Assuming the same power >> level, a 10,000 sec ramjet would produce 180 times as much >> thrust as a 1.8 million sec rocket! >Isaac, I'm surprised at you, everyone knows that there is a difference >between thrust and ISP. Just because a particular drive can generate more >thrust is irrelevant and you know it. Umm...I stand by exactly everything I wrote. Perhaps you misread. The amount of thrust one can generate _is_ significant. It determines how long it takes for you to reach your cruising speed, and this can have a dramatic effect on how long it takes to reach your destination. For instance, suppose you have an antimatter rocket capable of .001 gees acceleration. To reach .5c, it would take 500 years and a 125 light year acceleration run. Obviously, you won't be cruising at .5c for a trip to Alpha Centauri. >HOW much mass did you have to expend >to do that is the question, unless you can increase the ISP SIGNIFICANTLY, >there isn't enough mass in the universe to get even one starship up to >near light speed. If you don't want to take my word for it I will be happy >to furnish you with a link to NASA's Basic Spaceflight 101 web page... A ramjet design does _not_ follow the rocket equation. >> Uh oh. Please don't get temperature and heat confused. High >> temperatures aren't necessarily dangerous and relatively low >> temperatures aren't necessarily safe. >> What's important here is the level of waste heat, and the ship's >> capacity to reject this heat. If it can't reject the heat fast >> enough, it will start to heat up and melt/break up/otherwise fail. >I wasn't doing any such thing. I said THERMAL and ELASTIC. Ask any nuclear >engineer what happens to metals that are exposed to high temperatures for >long periods of time, they get BRITTLE. Oh, that's what you are worried about? Not a serious problem. Structural components need not be exposed, and exposed surfaces can be cooled with cooling systems. It really doesn't matter whether they get brittle, and if it really becomes a problem one can always back it up with multiple layers. >> Now, even without any special effort, a certain amount of waste >> heat will be naturally rejected via heat radiation. With extra >> heat rejection equipment, a great deal of heat may be rejected. >Not true, you can't reject heat uphill, against a gradient. What >will happen is it will radiate alright, INTO the ship. Umm...without any special effort, the ship will conduct and convect heat away from any hot spots to the outer surfaces. It won't be terrifically effective, but a certain amount of waste heat will be radiated into space naturally. Barring some coincidence resulting in vacuum insulative space all around the hot spots, conductiong and convection will be more significant than radiation in transfering heat from one part of the ship to another (assuming no special effort). >>Thus, as long as the power of the waste heat generated is below >>that which can be rejected, the ship can operate indefinitely >>without melting itself. >IBID What does IBID mean? >>Given that the power of the waste heat will be a certain percentage >>of the power of the stardrive, this determines the limit on the >>power of the stardrive. In turn, given the stardrive's thrust/power >>ratio, this determines a limit on the thrust of the stardrive. >Well, that is true, which was my point, the maximum output of the stardrive >is a function of the efficiency of the stardrive. However, there are a great many factors along the way. The thrust/power ratio, in particular, can be very favorably manipulated in a ramjet design. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 08:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1526" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "17:50:56" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "31" "starship-design: Blackhole" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA08301 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 08:51:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA08284 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 08:50:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1D2k-000HSZC; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 17:51:34 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1525 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Blackhole Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 17:50:56 +0100 Steve, > > Are you sure about black holes producing more energy the smaller they are? > > I've heard that they evaporate faster and faster, but that's only because > > the surface:volume ratio gets bigger. I'd guess the total evaporated energy > > gets less if the surface gets less. > > But indeed if you would have 1000 small holes instead of 1 big with the same > > total mass, you'd probably be better of with the 1000 small holes. > >I believe Isaac is right about this. Very small black holes evaporate >rapidly, to the point of being violently explosive. The evaporation >rate is a function of the gravity gradient at the event horizon, which >goes asymptotic as the mass of the hole approaches zero. Imagine the >energy release from a few hundred tons of mass turning into a spray of >high-energy subatomic particles within a tiny fraction of a second. I already wrote that it is said that smaller black holes evaporate faster, and I also assumed the radiation per surface area was bigger. The total surface however is getting smaller too. My suggestion was that the total surface got smaller faster than the emission rate per surface area gets bigger. So you didn't really address the point I made. After having thought things over, I conclude that the radius decreases linearly with the mass (R=2G*M/c^2). So the surface decreases quadratically while the mass decreases linearly. The question is: Does the "gravity gradient" increase linearly, quadratically or even faster with the radius decrease? Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 08:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2274" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "17:50:54" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "56" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA08430 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 08:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA08387 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 08:51:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-022.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1D2i-000HSUC; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 17:51:32 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2273 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 17:50:54 +0100 Hello Steve, > > I still don't understand why FTL creates causality problems. FTL doesn't > > mean going back in time, it just means that you can get a places before > > others can. For that matter you can't kill your mother before you are born > > even if you can travel FTL. > >Since you can do it, Timothy, do a Lorentz transformation on a FTL >worldline. I know what a world line, but am not sure what you mean with "Lorentz transforming it". But I think I know what you mean, so following that thought... >Note that for certain relative velocities the FTL worldline >swings from traveling forward in time to traveling backward in time, or >even for a particular sublight relative velocity appears to represent >infinite speed. I could indeed imagine someone observing this. >If you have a collection of events connected by worldlines representing >velocities less than or equal to c, then all observers at any relative >velocity to those events will agree on the time ordering of the events, >if not the time intervals between them. True. (Assuming they remember that what they see is not what actually happens.) >If there are events connected >by FTL worldlines, they can no longer agree on the time ordering, and >hence they will not agree on the causal order of events. Why not? Please give me an example. > > >P.S: If two objects APPROACH, each one travelling .99C, what is their > > >combined velocity of approach? Is this done the same way as the regular > > >velocity addition? > > > > Ken gave you the relative velocity, which is what a person on one of the > > objects would measure. For an observer to wich one objects is coming from > > the right with 0.99c and one from the left with 0.99c, it is just a matter > > of normal addition: The objects close eachother with 1.98c (If they are 1.98 > > lightsecond apart, it will take 1 second untill they collide.) > >Relative velocity is a frame-dependent notion. Ken's answer is correct >in the frame of either object given the measured velocities in a third >frame. Your answer is correct in the frame in which both objects are >seen to travel at 0.99c in opposite directions. Yep, I wasn't implying that Ken's answer was wrong, I just wanted to give Kyle another look at the problem. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 11:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["71" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "12:39:37" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "3" "starship-design: Fusion Propulsion Web Site (This is part of a University course)" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA28457 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 11:29:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA28387 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 11:29:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p14.gnt.com [204.49.68.219]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA24544 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 13:29:22 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 13:29:06 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCAD6D.086C7F60.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 1 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 70 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Fusion Propulsion Web Site (This is part of a University course) Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 12:39:37 -0500 http://elvis.neep.wisc.edu/~jfs/neep602.lecture31.fusionProp.96.html From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 12:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1696" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "21:17:34" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "46" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA15512 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 12:17:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA15499 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 12:17:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-015.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1GGg-000JaeC; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:18:10 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1695 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:17:34 +0100 Isaac, >- - - - - - - 8< - - - - - - - cute here - - - - - - - 8< - - - - - - - >For instance, let's say a particular gizmo, "The Foo Radio", can >transmit (and receive) a morse code message at 1.8c (relative to >the frame of reference of the gizmo). > >What you need to send a message backwards in time is two >space ships travelling very fast apart from each other (for >instance .9c). Both have Foo Radios pointed at each >other. Space ship A has his Foo Radio set up to simply >echo whatever he receives from his Foo Radio receiver. I guess that should be ship B. >For simplicity, assume I am talking about ship A's frame of >reference (and a clock on ship A) unless specified otherwise. > >Let's say ship A decides to send a message to ship B when >ship B is .9 light hours away; the time is 10:00. Ship >B will receive the message at 11:00 when ship B is 1.8 >light hours away. Ship B echoes the message back towards >ship A at 1.8c in _its_ frame of reference. You need to >do a Lorentz transformation to figure out where/when this >message goes in A's frame of reference. The result is >that in A's frame of reference, ship B's Foo Radio beam >moves at 1.42 c _backwards_ in time! How nice it would have been if you'd not left out the calculations for this transform... Now I still don't see why it goes backwards in time. BTW. Ship B echoes the message back towards ship A at 1.8c in _its_ frame of reference. That means it is moving at only 1.03053c in the frame where B moves with 0.9c -1.8=(0.9-1.03053)/(1+(0.9*-1.03053)) So for A the beam has approaches with: (0.9+1.03053)/(1+(0.9*1.03053))=1.001584c (I haven't the faintest idea how you get 1.42) Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 12:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["187" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "21:17:30" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "12" "Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA15651 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 12:18:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA15636 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 12:18:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-015.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1GGc-000JaCC; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:18:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 186 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ? Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:17:30 +0100 Hello Kevin, >>You had a thought: >> >>>1) give the fuel pellets a net positive charge. What would be the advantage of using electrical rather than magnetic pellet catching? Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 12:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1515" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "21:17:32" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "38" "Re: starship-design: Blackhole, Railgun and superconductor" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA15831 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 12:18:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA15789 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 12:18:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-015.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1GGe-000Ja5C; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:18:08 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1514 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Blackhole, Railgun and superconductor Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:17:32 +0100 Hello Isaac, >>Like Kelly mentioned, these velocities of 0.00001c are not near to what we >>like. Especially not near to the velocities we need for the deceleration track. >>I'm afraid that you/we need to work hard on the pellet beaming part. > >I already mentionned in another reply what the deal with the muzzle >velocities was. > >Anyway, the thing which makes current fusion pellet research applicable >is that it precisely addresses the problem of accelerating a frozen >hydrogen pellet with a puff of hot plasma in a railgun. That's the >sort of thing which on the face of it sounds dubious. That's for sure, but since I had no data about it, I didn't want to address it. >>>Yes, but since the magnetic field they are resisting is only momentary, >>>so is the opposing electric current. It doesn't build up. > >>Momentarily? Having a pulsed engine doesn't change things. Instead of >>increasing constantly, the current in the superconductor will increase with >>steps. >>If it has nothing to do with a pulsed engine, then you have to explain to me >>why it is momentarily. > >It is momentary because the magnetic field generated by any bit of >plasma goes away once that plasma goes away. It doesn't have >anything to do with it being pulsed or not. I think I see where I made the mistake: I assumed that the total magnetic flux of the leaving plasma was more than that of the approaching plasma. After having thought about it a while, I see this isn't the case. Sorry to have troubled you. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 15:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["827" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "16:29:50" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" "<33FB7DE2.15B1@sunherald.infi.net>" "25" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA23579 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 15:30:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA23556 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 15:30:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-115.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-115.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.115]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA04923 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:30:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33FB7DE2.15B1@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 826 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:29:50 -0700 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > How nice it would have been if you'd not left out the calculations for this > transform... Now I still don't see why it goes backwards in time. It doesn't really go backwards in time. Just in some reference points. Nothing goes backward in time. Even if you think causality violations prohibit FTL, no problem. FTL can be done without causality violations in EVERY REFERENCE POINT. See my follow up message. > > BTW. > Ship B echoes the message back towards ship A at 1.8c > in _its_ frame of reference. > > That means it is moving at only 1.03053c in the frame where B moves with 0.9c > -1.8=(0.9-1.03053)/(1+(0.9*-1.03053)) > > So for A the beam has approaches with: > (0.9+1.03053)/(1+(0.9*1.03053))=1.001584c > > (I haven't the faintest idea how you get 1.42) > > Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 15:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2925" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "15:51:41" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "52" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA01530 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 15:51:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA01506 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 15:51:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA16888 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 15:50:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA09957; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 15:51:41 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708202251.PAA09957@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33FB7DE2.15B1@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33FB7DE2.15B1@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2924 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 15:51:41 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > Timothy van der Linden wrote: > > > > How nice it would have been if you'd not left out the calculations for this > > transform... Now I still don't see why it goes backwards in time. > > It doesn't really go backwards in time. Just in some reference points. > Nothing goes backward in time. Even if you think causality violations > prohibit FTL, no problem. FTL can be done without causality violations > in EVERY REFERENCE POINT. See my follow up message. This is just plain wrong. Since I can give you an easy reference to a very nicely worked-out example, and I don't have a lot of time at the moment, I will refer those of you who still aren't getting this to the example in Chapter L of _Spacetime Physics_ (if you have a copy, you'll know it when you find it -- it involves the Enterprise watching the Klingons firing a hypothetical FTL missile at a planet). If you have a "photon torpedo" that travels at c or less, then all observers will agree that if the Enterprise fires it at a Klingon ship, it left the Enterprise and struck the Klingon ship some time later in the observer's future, causing the Klingon ship to blow up. If you have a "tachyon torpedo" that travels faster than c, then observers below a certain velocity with respect to the Enterprise will see it leave the Enterprise's launcher and travel FTL towards the Klingon ship, striking it and detonating. Other observers above that certain velocity with respect to the Enterprise will see a detonation from which the tachyon torpedo emerges, then travels FTL straight back to the launcher on the Enterprise and neatly berths itself. At the critical velocity (determined by the FTL speed of the tachyon torpedo) the events of the Klingon ship exploding and the torpedo leaving/berthing in the Enterprise's launcher will be _simultaneous_. Now, the question here is which was cause and which was effect. In the photon torpedo case, all observers can agree on the cause and the effect; the Enterprise firing the torpedo is the cause, and the torpedo striking the Klingon ship and detonating is the effect. In the tachyon torpedo case, some observers will say that the Enterprise caused the destruction of the Klingon ship, and others can equally rightly say that the Klingon ship exploded spontaneously and somehow threw a perfectly functional tachyon torpedo back to the Enterprise's launcher, and an obserer moving at just the right speed will not be able to determine any causal relationship at all. FTL conflicts with unambiguous causality. My example is a bit backwards from the _Spacetime Physics_ example. However, the _Spacetime Physics_ example is quite neatly diagrammed and worked out mathematically, better than I could hope to do in an email message. Please try to find, read, and understand this example before you insist again that there is no conflict betwen FTL travel and causality. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 16:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1915" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "16:44:17" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "33" "starship-design: Blackhole" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA19522 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:44:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA19510 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:44:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA23339; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:43:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA10088; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:44:17 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708202344.QAA10088@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1914 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Blackhole Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:44:17 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > >I believe Isaac is right about this. Very small black holes evaporate > >rapidly, to the point of being violently explosive. The evaporation > >rate is a function of the gravity gradient at the event horizon, which > >goes asymptotic as the mass of the hole approaches zero. Imagine the > >energy release from a few hundred tons of mass turning into a spray of > >high-energy subatomic particles within a tiny fraction of a second. > > I already wrote that it is said that smaller black holes evaporate faster, > and I also assumed the radiation per surface area was bigger. > The total surface however is getting smaller too. My suggestion was that the > total surface got smaller faster than the emission rate per surface area > gets bigger. > So you didn't really address the point I made. > After having thought things over, I conclude that the radius decreases > linearly with the mass (R=2G*M/c^2). So the surface decreases quadratically > while the mass decreases linearly. > The question is: Does the "gravity gradient" increase linearly, > quadratically or even faster with the radius decrease? My understanding (which is blissfully free of any messy equations :-) is that the rate of virtual particle creation is proportional to the rate of change of gravitational force near the black hole's event horizon. Since the force of gravity at r is proportional to 1/r^2, then the derivative of that is proportional to 1/r^3. So although the surface area of the black hole is proportional to r^2, the rate of evaporation is proportional to r^2/r^3 or 1/r. Furthermore the Schwarzchild radius for a "classical" black hole is directly proportional to the black hole mass. So despite the shrinking surface area the rate of evaporation increases asymptotically as the black hole shrinks and the black hole finishes evaporating with an impressive bang. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 16:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1603" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "16:59:42" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "33" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA24486 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:59:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA24475 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:59:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA24986; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:58:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA10126; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:59:42 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708202359.QAA10126@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1602 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:59:42 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > >If you have a collection of events connected by worldlines representing > >velocities less than or equal to c, then all observers at any relative > >velocity to those events will agree on the time ordering of the events, > >if not the time intervals between them. > > True. (Assuming they remember that what they see is not what actually happens.) The qualification is unnecessary, even incorrect in some senses. What those observers see can be used to accurately reconstruct the intervals between events. The local measurements of different observers may differ, but they can all apply appropriate transforms to reconstruct the events and intervals > >If there are events connected > >by FTL worldlines, they can no longer agree on the time ordering, and > >hence they will not agree on the causal order of events. > > Why not? Please give me an example. One observer fires a projectile that travels at 3 c, and strikes a target 3 light-years away. Consider the firing of the projectile as event A and the projectile striking the target as event B. What is the spacetime location of event B relative to event A as seen by an observer travelling at 0.1 c relative to the first observer? At 0.5 c? observer? At 0.9 c? At what velocity does a moving observer have to travel to measure those events as simultaneous in his reference frame? Now repeat this exercise for the case where the projectile travels at 1/3 c and strikes a target 1 light-year away, and determine the measured spacetime locations as seen by the same three moving observers. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 18:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2879" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "16:05:30" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "75" "starship-design: Apology" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA22727 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:47:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA22707 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:47:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p8.gnt.com [204.49.68.213]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA07744 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:47:13 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:47:09 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCADAA.3A826180.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 73 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2878 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Apology Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:05:30 -0500 Gee, I think I owe someone an apology for a joking remark about transporting antimatter... QUOTE BEGINS HERE------------------------------------------------ We are presently building a portable antiproton trap. [Ref. 3, 4] It is designed to carry up to 10+9 antiprotons for 10 days. A schematic drawing of the trap is shown in Figure 5. It is a prototype for a trap, not necessarily any larger, capable of carrying 10+14 antiprotons for up to 120 days (duration of a round trip mission to Mars). Since earlier experiments at LEAR have demonstrated antiproton lifetimes up to two months, we are confident we can achieve this goal. Figure 5 - Portable Antiproton Trap The portable trap is one meter tall, 30 cm across, and weighs 55 kg. It operates at 4 K temperature, supported by cryogenic nitrogen and helium reservoirs, and has a unique feature that the confining magnet is made of permanently magnetic SmCo materials, which should prove to be robust. This trap is currently being tested, and will then be sent to CERN for a fill and demonstration journey across Europe. Figure 6 shows a photograph of the trap under test in the Penn State laboratories. Figure 6 - Portable Penning Trap Under Test at Penn State An alternate method for transporting large numbers of antiprotons into space utilizes Radiofrequency Quadrupole (RFQ) Storage Rings. A schematic view of a ring is shown in Figure 7. Pulsed bunches of antiprotons of 2.5 keV energy are injected into the ring (top), where they are captured and rotated by electric forces amongst the four electrodes (bottom). Figure 7 - Schematic of Radiofrequency Quadrupole (RFQ) Storage Ring We have designed a set of 20 such rings, capable of transporting a total of one microgram of antiprotons into space for long periods of time. The rings are shown in Figure 8, with specifications given in Table 1. To stand back from the space charge limit for constant number of antiprotons, and to reduce power loading to the antiproton plasma (<1 kW), injection of positrons into the rings with superconducting RF would be desirable. This system is sized to be transportable on the U.S. Interstate Highway System, after loading of antiprotons at Fermilab over a period of several months.\ QUOTE ENDS HERE---------------------------------------------------- And I thought the idea was crazy.....I hereby retract my earlier snide remarks about transporting black holes, I'm now certain SOMEONE is planning to transport blackholes also. Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- There is nothing so big or so crazy that one out of a million technological societies may not feel itself driven to do, provided it is physically possible. Freeman Dyson, 1965 From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 18:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["189" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "19:32:55" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "11" "starship-design: http://antimatter.phys.psu.edu/" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA22759 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:47:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA22731 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:47:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p8.gnt.com [204.49.68.213]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA07759 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:47:17 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:47:14 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCADAA.3D4AF760.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 3 TEXT, 5 UUENCODE X-MS-Attachment: Antimatter Space Propulsion at Penn State Uni...url 0 00-00-1980 00:00 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 188 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: http://antimatter.phys.psu.edu/ Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 19:32:55 -0500 http://antimatter.phys.psu.edu/ begin 600 Antimatter Space Propulsion at Penn State Uni...url M6TEN=&5R;F5T4VAO; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:47:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p8.gnt.com [204.49.68.213]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA07734 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:47:06 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:47:02 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCADAA.3651B020.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 30 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1208 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: FW: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 14:43:33 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: Lee Parker Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 1997 1:26 PM To: 'LIT Starship Design Group' Subject: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Isaac, ISP and thrust are both important, and unless you are using voodoo, I don't see how you can say the rocket equation doesn't apply. A ramjet is still a rocket, not a warp drive. It still ingests mass and exhausts mass. ISP and thrust are two of the yardsticks which we use to measure the usefulness of particular drives. An ISP of 10,000 sec would require an enormous mass of pellets, even for a 900 year mission! To bring it into the realm of possibility would require over 100,000,000,000,000 kg of pellets, assuming you "catch" all of them. Umm, let's see here, that comes out to about thirty moons the size of Mars' Deimos. Actually, it will be at least double that because you are going to have to cancel the acceleration of the launcher also. BTW, what were these pellets made of? D3He or D-T? Lee (o o) ------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------- Bohr moved in atomic circles while Schrodinger waved and Heisenberg hesitated. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 20:25 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1672" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "21:24:53" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "31" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA12221 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:25:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA12192 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:25:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-115.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-103.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.103]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA26710 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 23:25:02 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33FBC315.3FDF@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199708202359.QAA10126@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1671 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:24:53 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > One observer fires a projectile that travels at 3 c, and strikes a > target 3 light-years away. Consider the firing of the projectile as > event A and the projectile striking the target as event B. What is the > spacetime location of event B relative to event A as seen by an observer > travelling at 0.1 c relative to the first observer? At 0.5 c? > observer? At 0.9 c? At what velocity does a moving observer have to > travel to measure those events as simultaneous in his reference frame? > > Now repeat this exercise for the case where the projectile travels at > 1/3 c and strikes a target 1 light-year away, and determine the measured > spacetime locations as seen by the same three moving observers. Can you please explain why the backwards in time travel occurs? If the Causality violation has to do with the light arrival from the object, I have a solution you might want to consider. Time travel in FTL might not occur- see my earlier mention of Stephen Hawking's time protection theory. Causality violations do not accur if you do not travel LOCALLY FTL, which is not what I'm suggesting doing. If you construct the spacetime metric correctly, proper time will be EXACTLY THE SAME as apparent time. Causality violations would not occur either since the respective light cone would be carried along with the object travelling FTL. Not local FTL, GLOBAL FTL. The object would actually not be moving FTL, but be stationary. This is real stuff, and I know it. I'm not just making this up. P.S.: Tipler's infinite rotating cylinder has to have no ends?? How is that possible? (sudden thought comes to my mind...) Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 21:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4442" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "21:08:27" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "86" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA20741 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:08:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA20729 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:08:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts10-line1.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.99]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA23656 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:07:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA10682; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:08:27 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708210408.VAA10682@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33FBC315.3FDF@sunherald.infi.net> References: <199708202359.QAA10126@tzadkiel.efn.org> <33FBC315.3FDF@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 4441 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:08:27 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > Steve VanDevender wrote: > > One observer fires a projectile that travels at 3 c, and strikes a > > target 3 light-years away. Consider the firing of the projectile as > > event A and the projectile striking the target as event B. What is the > > spacetime location of event B relative to event A as seen by an observer > > travelling at 0.1 c relative to the first observer? At 0.5 c? > > observer? At 0.9 c? At what velocity does a moving observer have to > > travel to measure those events as simultaneous in his reference frame? > > > > Now repeat this exercise for the case where the projectile travels at > > 1/3 c and strikes a target 1 light-year away, and determine the measured > > spacetime locations as seen by the same three moving observers. > > Can you please explain why the backwards in time travel occurs? Do the math. It will explain more to you than I can in words. If you go through enough contortions you can avoid talking about "backward in time travel". The important point is that observers won't agree on which thing came first in time, and hence don't agree that event A caused event B (after all, if your observations show event B happening before event A, how could it?). You get improbable things like fully-formed torpedos shooting out of explosions unscathed, but the observers who see this can construct a physically possible explanation (wildly improbable, but physically possible; i.e. all these atoms somehow come out of the explosion and arrange themselves into a tachyon torpedo which then shoots away). Causality, as we're talking about it in this context, is the notion that there is an unambiguous time order to events that allows you to determine that one event caused another, because that event preceded the other in time and is linked to the other (say by a particle traveling from the first event to the second). In relativity, as long as nothing exceeds the speed of light, all observers agree on the time order of connected events and hence can trace a chain of causality through them. If you admit faster-than-light travel, then you have to abandon causality, because if you do then the time order of events linked by FTL interactions cannot be the same for all observers. > If the Causality violation has to do with the light arrival from the object, Nope, not even close. It's that under Lorentz transformation there is no unambigous time order for the events connected by FTL travel, unlike events connected by slower-than-light travel which have the same time order under all possible Lorentz transformations. > I have a solution you might want to consider. Since your premise is faulty your solution is likely to be faulty too. > Time travel in FTL might not > occur- see my earlier mention of Stephen Hawking's time protection > theory. Causality violations do not accur if you do not travel LOCALLY > FTL, which is not what I'm suggesting doing. If you construct the > spacetime metric correctly, proper time will be EXACTLY THE SAME as > apparent time. Huh? You can't just construct any spacetime metric you want; you're limited to what's available in general relativity. Proper time is apparent time only for the object that follows the worldline you're talking about. All other observers will disagree on the apparent time, but can construct the proper time by measuring the worldline of the object. > Causality violations would not occur either since the > respective light cone would be carried along with the object travelling > FTL. Not local FTL, GLOBAL FTL. The object would actually not be moving > FTL, but be stationary. This is real stuff, and I know it. I'm not just > making this up. In slower-than-light travel, there's always a frame in which an object is (instantaneously) stationary (the qualification covers accelerating objects). There's no slower-than-light frame in which a faster-than-light object can be instantaneously stationary. That's partly why faster-than-light travel must involve time-ordering discrepancies. > P.S.: Tipler's infinite rotating cylinder has to have no ends?? How is > that possible? (sudden thought comes to my mind...) Well, it's not, really, which is why Tipler's infinite rotating cylinder, as well as all the other known methods of constructing what Nick Herbert calls "closed timelike loops", don't appear to be constructible in our universe. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 20 21:49 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2326" "Wed" "20" "August" "1997" "22:48:50" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "43" "starship-design: FTL/inertia" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA28478 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:49:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA28468 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:49:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-89.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-89.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.89]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA22249 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 00:48:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33FBD6C1.252F@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2325 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL/inertia Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 22:48:50 -0700 Greetings: I should have elaborated on my FTL idea better to avoid confusion. If you warp space correctly, you can travel globally FTL, while not violating causality as with local FTL. Imagine a warp that can be propulsive, and all surrounding of the vehicle. The ship generates this field/warp/whatever by some means (I have some ideas), which allows the ship to remain in locally flat spacetime, and remain stationary, while the warp travels FTL. The ship itself isn't moving at all. Therefor it is possible to be moving, yet stationary. Since the spacetime inside the warp is flat like the space outside the warp, and the light cone is carried with it, there is NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER in the time measured in the ship AND on earth. The Lorentz problem of causality violation is no longer relevant, so the FTL is perfectly legal in our universe. This kind of drive system could get you to a star in, say 5 months (just an example) as measured on the ship and 5 months as measured on earth. The idea on how to generate this warp: electromagnetic gravity control. This seems impossible at first, but think about this: ZPF affects gravity/inertia. EM affects ZPF. So logically, EM affects gravity. Inertia is not just some 'trick', but a real force that can be used to propel something. If anyone calls this a perpetual motion machine, we're in real trouble, since motors would be! (as long as power is applied, it goes). Even if you used negative matter (assuming there is such a thing) and regular matter, this still is not perpetual motion. Perpetual=infinity, 10^12 years is long, but not perpetual. Gravity radiates away. If the signal scenario with the receding ships going at a combined velocity of 1.8c as posted earlier produces FTL signaling/causality violation problems, this shows that we need a complete revision of relativistic physics and ways of looking at causality. I still don't see why causality violation is forbidden. Because it makes no sense? Does most of what we think we know make sense? No. Kyle Mcallister P.S.: When you (everyone in the group) were a kid, did you ever fill a bucket with water and sling it over your head? And not get wet? If you did it right you wouldn't get wet. There may be ways of taking this force of inertia and making it assymmetrical. That would be a good thing. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 04:21 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["997" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "06:22:11" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "25" "Re: FW: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA07121 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 04:21:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id EAA07112 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 04:21:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA25088; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 06:22:12 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708211122.AA25088@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCADAA.3651B020.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 20, 97 02:43:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 996 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: FW: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 06:22:11 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >ISP and thrust are both important, and unless you are using voodoo, I don't >see how you can say the rocket equation doesn't apply. A ramjet is still a >rocket, not a warp drive. It still ingests mass and exhausts mass. The rocket equation only applies to rockets--and even then only rockets which do not refuel. A rocket that does not ingest mass. The rocket equation does not apply to any other form of propulsion, including solar sails and ramjets. >An ISP of 10,000 sec would require an enormous mass of pellets, With a ramjet, an Isp of 10,000 requires a pellet track/payload mass ratio of 1500 to reach .5c. With a 10,000,000 kg ship, that means 15,000,000,000 kg in pellets. That's alot, but it's about as reasonable as you're going to get for a manned interstellar mission. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 05:05 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2421" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "07:06:43" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "61" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA11667 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 05:05:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA11657 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 05:05:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA29323; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 07:06:43 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708211206.AA29323@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 20, 97 09:17:34 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2420 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 07:06:43 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Isaac, BTW, I wrote this FTL example once a while ago, but I didn't keep records of my calculations. >>- - - - - - - 8< - - - - - - - cute here - - - - - - - 8< - - - - - - - >>For instance, let's say a particular gizmo, "The Foo Radio", can >>transmit (and receive) a morse code message at 1.8c (relative to >>the frame of reference of the gizmo). >>What you need to send a message backwards in time is two >>space ships travelling very fast apart from each other (for >>instance .9c). Both have Foo Radios pointed at each >>other. Space ship A has his Foo Radio set up to simply >>echo whatever he receives from his Foo Radio receiver. >I guess that should be ship B. It's worded correctly, but confusingly. It is ship _A_'s receiver, but of course this receiver is set up to receive Foo messages from ship B. >>For simplicity, assume I am talking about ship A's frame of >>reference (and a clock on ship A) unless specified otherwise. >>Let's say ship A decides to send a message to ship B when >>ship B is .9 light hours away; the time is 10:00. Ship >>B will receive the message at 11:00 when ship B is 1.8 >>light hours away. Ship B echoes the message back towards >>ship A at 1.8c in _its_ frame of reference. You need to >>do a Lorentz transformation to figure out where/when this >>message goes in A's frame of reference. The result is >>that in A's frame of reference, ship B's Foo Radio beam >>moves at 1.42 c _backwards_ in time! >How nice it would have been if you'd not left out the calculations for this >transform... Now I still don't see why it goes backwards in time. It's very difficult to explain why it moves backwards in time without space-time graphs. ASCII art wouldn't suffice for this example. >BTW. > Ship B echoes the message back towards ship A at 1.8c > in _its_ frame of reference. Of course. As I said. >That means it is moving at only 1.03053c in the frame where B moves with 0.9c >-1.8=(0.9-1.03053)/(1+(0.9*-1.03053)) 1.8=(.9-1.45)/(1+(.9*(-1.45)), whatever the significance of this equation. You have to be very careful about whether you're looking at a beam sent in the same direction or opposite to the direction ship B is moving in. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 05:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1472" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "07:19:20" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "37" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA12931 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 05:18:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA12922 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 05:18:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA00595; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 07:19:20 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708211219.AA00595@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <33FB7DE2.15B1@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 20, 97 04:29:50 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1471 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 07:19:20 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Timothy van der Linden wrote: >> How nice it would have been if you'd not left out the calculations for this >> transform... Now I still don't see why it goes backwards in time. >It doesn't really go backwards in time. Just in some reference points. This _includes_ ship A's reference frame. The result? The message, originally sent from ship A and echoed by ship B travels backwards in time in _every_ reference frame. Ship A receives its own message before it sent it. _Everybody_ in _every_ (sublight) reference frame agrees on that. The paradox? What if Ship A decides to maliciously send a different message? >Nothing goes backward in time. Even if you think causality violations >prohibit FTL, no problem. FTL can be done without causality violations >in EVERY REFERENCE POINT. See my follow up message. This is only possible if relativity is violated. For example, the sort of FTL you see typically involves a special reference frame. The only FTL speeds allowed are those which don't go backwards in time in this special reference frame. This means that in every other reference frame, there are certain FTL velocities which aren't allowed. With FTL travel and relativity, you can literally go back in time and kill your grandfather. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 05:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["2155" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "07:37:03" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" "<9708211237.AA02290@bit.csc.lsu.edu>" "53" "Re: starship-design: FTL/inertia" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA15073 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 05:36:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA15064 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 05:36:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA02290; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 07:37:04 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708211237.AA02290@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <33FBD6C1.252F@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 20, 97 10:48:50 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2154 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL/inertia Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 07:37:03 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Greetings: >I should have elaborated on my FTL idea better to avoid confusion. Please do it on rec.arts.sf.science or sci.physics or rec.arts.startrek.tech. This topic is an FAQ there. >If you warp space correctly, you can travel globally FTL, while not >violating causality as with local FTL. Only if relativity is invalid. If relativity is valid--that is, if you can acheive a certain FTL speed in any sublight reference frame, then you can travel backwards in time and kill your grandfather. I'm not talking about dinky little "causality violations" like not agreeing on who shot what tachyon torpedo whatever. I'm talking about _real_ causality violations, where you can meet yourself back in time. This requires "global FTL", not "local FTL". In order to go back in time far enough to kill your grandfather, you have to move further. The further you go, the further back in time you can go. The longer the distance the better. >The idea on how to generate this warp: electromagnetic gravity control. >This seems impossible at first, but think about this: ZPF affects >gravity/inertia. EM affects ZPF. So logically, EM affects gravity. Oh, no. This list is going to get unliveable if fringe "science" starts taking up bandwidth. Take it to sci.physics or sci.skeptic. >Kyle Mcallister >P.S.: When you (everyone in the group) were a kid, did you ever fill a >bucket with water and sling it over your head? And not get wet? If you >did it right you wouldn't get wet. There may be ways of taking this >force of inertia and making it assymmetrical. That would be a good >thing. It would also be impossible, if the physics we know is even vaguely accurate (which it is). Nonetheless, ignorant people still try to figure out some way to do this and even make web pages and publicly insist their devices work without ever performing a simple test like suspending it from a string to see if it will pull itself to the side. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 12:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1406" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "13:03:56" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" "<33FC9F2B.7406@sunherald.infi.net>" "28" "starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA26233 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:04:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA26218 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:04:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-112.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-112.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.112]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA02469 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 15:04:19 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33FC9F2B.7406@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1405 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 13:03:56 -0700 I posted that FTL idea without telling you something. My purpose was to see what responses I got, and this proves what I said about amatuers: I did not invent that FTL idea. Not at all. Miguel Alcubierre did, and when he did, he was listened to. If some of you will take the time to read the actual paper and talk to Alcubierre, you will see that it allows FTL travel, elimination of time dilation problems, no causality violations, no time travel. The only drawback he reported is that it requires negative energy density in one part to work. Why is this a drawback? Because negative energy density is forbidden by the Weak, Strong, and Dominant energy states of general relativity. Sorry guys, but physics failed again. Negative energy density is as real and true as any other type of energy density. It HAS BEEN PROVEN. Unidirectional inertia is not impossible, we just don't know how to do it yet. What do you think an alcubierre drive is? I'd be very careful about calling scientists with odd or unproven ideas ignorant, as the Wright brothers were treated the same. And flight was physically impossible for humans! FTL is not impossible. I don't wish to argue, but merely have an exchange of ideas. I thought that was what science was about. Apparently not anymore. Regards, Kyle Mcallister P.S.: If anyone has 'nasty' comments (and I'm not pointing fingers) avoid the trouble of sending them. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 12:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["513" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "21:13:15" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "17" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA29670 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:13:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA29611 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:13:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1cg3-000K7OC; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:13:51 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 512 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:13:15 +0100 Isaac, >>That means it is moving at only 1.03053c in the frame where B moves with 0.9c >>-1.8=(0.9-1.03053)/(1+(0.9*-1.03053)) > >1.8=(.9-1.45)/(1+(.9*(-1.45)), whatever the significance of this >equation. You have to be very careful about whether you're looking >at a beam sent in the same direction or opposite to the direction >ship B is moving in. According to your equation 1.8 and .9 are in the same direction? I thought ship B sent the beam in the opposite direction of the ship's movement. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 12:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1326" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "21:13:10" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: Blackhole" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA00057 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:14:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA00008 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:13:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1cfx-000K7MC; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:13:45 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1325 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Blackhole Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:13:10 +0100 Steve replied to me: >My understanding (which is blissfully free of any messy equations :-) is >that the rate of virtual particle creation is proportional to the rate >of change of gravitational force near the black hole's event horizon. >Since the force of gravity at r is proportional to 1/r^2, then the >derivative of that is proportional to 1/r^3. Yup. >So although the surface >area of the black hole is proportional to r^2, the rate of evaporation >is proportional to r^2/r^3 or 1/r. Eh, yup. >Furthermore the Schwarzchild radius >for a "classical" black hole is directly proportional to the black hole >mass. So despite the shrinking surface area the rate of evaporation >increases asymptotically as the black hole shrinks and the black hole >finishes evaporating with an impressive bang. Yep, you convinced me. Timothy P.S. A little addition (which partially relates to the problem): F=GMm/r^2 r=2GM/c^2 Fsurface=GMm/4G^2M^2*c^4=mc^4/(4GM) Asurface=4pi r^2=4pi (4 G^2 M^2/c^4)=16 pi G^2 M^2/c^4 Fsurface/Asurface=c^8 m/(64 pi G^3 M^3) The surfaceforce per surface area increases with the 3th power when the mass decreases! (NB: The total surface area decreases with the 3th power too, and since we're sitting on the surface, the distance to the center decreases with the first power at the same time) From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 12:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2126" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "21:13:12" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "57" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA00288 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:14:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA00259 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:14:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1cg0-000K7NC; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:13:48 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2125 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:13:12 +0100 Steve, >One observer fires a projectile that travels at 3 c, and strikes a >target 3 light-years away. Consider the firing of the projectile as >event A and the projectile striking the target as event B. What is the >spacetime location of event B relative to event A as seen by an observer >travelling at 0.1 c relative to the first observer? At 0.5 c? >observer? At 0.9 c? At what velocity does a moving observer have to >travel to measure those events as simultaneous in his reference frame? v x t' = gamma (t - -----) 2 c x' = gamma (x - v t) Spacetime coordinate convention: (t',x',y',z') v=0 A(0,0,0,0) B( 1.000,3.000,0,0) v=0.1 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.704,2.915,0,0) v=0.3 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.105,2.830,0,0) v=1/3 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.000,2.828,0,0) v=0.9 A(0,0,0,0) B(-3.900,4.818,0,0) >Now repeat this exercise for the case where the projectile travels at >1/3 c and strikes a target 1 light-year away, and determine the measured >spacetime locations as seen by the same three moving observers. v=0 A(0,0,0,0) B( 3.000,1.000,0,0) v=0.1 A(0,0,0,0) B( 2.714,0.905,0,0) v=0.3 A(0,0,0,0) B( 2.201,0.734,0,0) v=0.9 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.688,0.229,0,0) v=1.0 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.000,0.000,0,0) OK, I catch your drift. But... knowing that you move this fast with respect to the observed phenomenon, you can reconstruct what really(=in a frame at rest) happens and remove the apparent causality reversal. For those few that happen to see everything at once, they are at a loss, they will never be able to reconstruct what happened. OK, now for a horizontal bar falling down on a parallel floor. The event that one end touches the floor is called A, the event that the other bar touches the floor is called B. (If you like, assume the bar is 1 lightsecond long) v=0 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.000,1.000,0,0) v=0.1 A(0,0,0,0) B(-0.101,1.005,0,0) v=0.9 A(0,0,0,0) B(-2.065,2.294,0,0) v=-0.1 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.101,1.005,0,0) So even for very small velocities without FTL, you can measure a reversal in time ordering. Does my example differ from yours? Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 12:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["347" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "21:13:14" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "13" "Re: starship-design: Apology" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA00637 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:15:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA00604 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:15:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-027.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x1cg2-000K7QC; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:13:50 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 346 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Apology Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:13:14 +0100 Lee, Well a few nanograms is still 4 magnitudes less than 1E14 antiprotons. 1E14 antiprotons combined with the same amount of protons will release a mere energy of 20kJ. A fire cracker will do about the same, only a little bit less gamma rays though. (Considering the trap weighs 50 kg, we better use firecrackers for a trip to mars) Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 12:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3268" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "12:35:32" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "62" "starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA11000 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:35:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA10975 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:35:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA11632 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:34:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA12828; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:35:32 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708211935.MAA12828@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33FC9F2B.7406@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33FC9F2B.7406@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 3267 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:35:32 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > I posted that FTL idea without telling you something. My purpose was to > see what responses I got, and this proves what I said about amatuers: > > I did not invent that FTL idea. Not at all. Miguel Alcubierre did, and > when he did, he was listened to. If some of you will take the time to > read the actual paper and talk to Alcubierre, you will see that it > allows FTL travel, elimination of time dilation problems, no causality > violations, no time travel. The only drawback he reported is that it > requires negative energy density in one part to work. Even Alcubierre presented his idea in the context of general relativity, and I don't think even he claimed you can have FTL without causality violation. Despite what you want to think, this simply says that FTL travel is not accepted in the context of current physics. _Every_ FTL method that's been tossed around in the physics community depends on purely hypothetical, unobserved, unconstructable phenomena. The reason that you are an amateur, Kyle, is that you don't even understand the physical laws that you want to break. I won't claim to fully understand relativity, but I've at least tried to learn about it. > Why is this a > drawback? Because negative energy density is forbidden by the Weak, > Strong, and Dominant energy states of general relativity. Sorry guys, > but physics failed again. Negative energy density is as real and true as > any other type of energy density. It HAS BEEN PROVEN. Where has it been proven? Show me a region of negative energy density sufficient to satisfy Alcubierre's requirements. > Unidirectional inertia is not impossible, we just don't know how to do > it yet. What do you think an alcubierre drive is? I'd be very careful > about calling scientists with odd or unproven ideas ignorant, as the > Wright brothers were treated the same. And flight was physically > impossible for humans! FTL is not impossible. I don't wish to argue, but > merely have an exchange of ideas. I thought that was what science was > about. Apparently not anymore. The Wright brothers knew that things could fly because people had seen things fly ever since there were people. At the time machine-powered flight was considered impossible merely because of engineering limitations, which the Wright brothers overcame. Flying faster than the speed of sound was exactly the same situation -- obviously not physically impossible (people had already made things other than manned aircraft travel faster than sound) but beyond what most considered the engineering capabilities of the time. The reason FTL is considered impossible is that it's not allowed by the laws of physics, and is therefore not an engineering limitation. Breaking the "light barrier" is nowhere near the same kind of problem as breaking the sound barrier. Science is about _critical_ exchange of ideas, not just accepting any random thoguhts that people have, ignorant or not. Float a wrong idea, and everyone who thinks about it will tell you it's wrong, and why. Many more wrong ideas get sent around than right ideas, which is part of the process. If your idea really is right, it will stand up to critical analysis and experimental verification. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 12:39 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1202" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "14:40:02" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "29" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA12588 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:39:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA12531 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:39:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA20386; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 14:40:03 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708211940.AA20386@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 21, 97 09:13:15 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1201 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 14:40:02 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Isaac, >>>That means it is moving at only 1.03053c in the frame where B moves with 0.9c >>>-1.8=(0.9-1.03053)/(1+(0.9*-1.03053)) >>1.8=(.9-1.45)/(1+(.9*(-1.45)), whatever the significance of this >>equation. You have to be very careful about whether you're looking >>at a beam sent in the same direction or opposite to the direction >>ship B is moving in. >According to your equation 1.8 and .9 are in the same direction? I thought >ship B sent the beam in the opposite direction of the ship's movement. Like I said, I don't know exactly what your equation is calculating. You have a bunch of numbers but no generic equation. One thing, though, is that the message is being sent backwards in time, so the sign of its velocity is the opposite of what you'd expect. A message being sent backwards in time in the "south" direction has a velocity in the "north" direction. Like I said, the easiest way to see how a message is being sent back in time is with space-time diagrams. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 12:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2342" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "12:53:30" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "44" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA17659 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:53:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA17634 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:53:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA13502 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:52:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA12873; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:53:30 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708211953.MAA12873@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2341 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:53:30 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > OK, I catch your drift. But... knowing that you move this fast with respect > to the observed phenomenon, you can reconstruct what really(=in a frame at > rest) happens and remove the apparent causality reversal. > For those few that happen to see everything at once, they are at a loss, > they will never be able to reconstruct what happened. There's your problem. There is no "frame at rest". Relativity has no preferred frames. In the FTL case, there is no unique time ordering of events (what if the "frame at rest" is really a "frame in motion"? You can't prefer one over the other!) and hence no way to establish causality. In the STL (slower-than-light) case, a unique time ordering of events exists for all possible observers. > OK, now for a horizontal bar falling down on a parallel floor. The event > that one end touches the floor is called A, the event that the other bar > touches the floor is called B. > (If you like, assume the bar is 1 lightsecond long) > > v=0 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.000,1.000,0,0) > v=0.1 A(0,0,0,0) B(-0.101,1.005,0,0) > v=0.9 A(0,0,0,0) B(-2.065,2.294,0,0) > v=-0.1 A(0,0,0,0) B( 0.101,1.005,0,0) > > So even for very small velocities without FTL, you can measure a reversal in > time ordering. Does my example differ from yours? Yes, because no one is claiming that there is a FTL link between the ends of the bar. It is perfectly accepted that when events are separated by a spacelike interval (t^2 - x^2 < 0) all observers cannot agree on the time ordering of those events, and the ends of the bar are separated by such a spacelike interval. FTL travel means sending a particle between events that have spacelike intervals between them. It may be worth pointing out that in relativity rigid objects cannot be truly perfectly rigid, because, for example, the disturbance caused by striking a rigid rod on one end with a hammer must travel at c or less to the other end of the rod. In fact, you can derive Lorentz contraction from this, and these derivations are in _Spacetime Physics_. If you push on one end of a rigid rod, it must contract because the far end always lags behind in receiving the force that was applied to the near end, and as measured in the frame where the rod was initially at rest the rod gradually shrinks. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 13:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3936" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "14:26:40" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "83" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA00614 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 13:27:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA00602 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 13:26:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-112.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-79.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.79]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA27139; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 16:26:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33FCB290.1610@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <33FC9F2B.7406@sunherald.infi.net> <199708211935.MAA12828@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 3935 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu, Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 14:26:40 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > Even Alcubierre presented his idea in the context of general relativity, > and I don't think even he claimed you can have FTL without causality > violation. It was indicated in many places, including his paper. Like you said, the Lorentz contraction causes this, and alcubierre FTL eliminates this since you are not travelling FTL, rather sitting stationary in a bubble of warped spacetime that is moving FTL (which isn't forbode) > > Despite what you want to think, this simply says that FTL travel is not > accepted in the context of current physics. _Every_ FTL method that's > been tossed around in the physics community depends on purely > hypothetical, unobserved, unconstructable phenomena. Thanks for saying current physics. It shows that some scientists are willing to accept the possiblility that what is now considered impossible may someday be possible. > > The reason that you are an amateur, Kyle, is that you don't even > understand the physical laws that you want to break. I won't claim to > fully understand relativity, but I've at least tried to learn about it. I've tried on many occasions to ask questions, but all I get from people are nasty comments. I am reading all I can on the subject. > > > Why is this a > > drawback? Because negative energy density is forbidden by the Weak, > > Strong, and Dominant energy states of general relativity. Sorry guys, > > but physics failed again. Negative energy density is as real and true as > > any other type of energy density. It HAS BEEN PROVEN. > > Where has it been proven? Show me a region of negative energy density > sufficient to satisfy Alcubierre's requirements. Casimir cavities. We don't yet have technology necessary to build such a device. I don't think that it will be possible by 2050 anymore. Unless we make contact with a civilization that is already travelling FTL... > > > Unidirectional inertia is not impossible, we just don't know how to do > > it yet. What do you think an alcubierre drive is? I'd be very careful > > about calling scientists with odd or unproven ideas ignorant, as the > > Wright brothers were treated the same. And flight was physically > > impossible for humans! FTL is not impossible. I don't wish to argue, but > > merely have an exchange of ideas. I thought that was what science was > > about. Apparently not anymore. > > The Wright brothers knew that things could fly because people had seen > things fly ever since there were people. At the time machine-powered > flight was considered impossible merely because of engineering > limitations, which the Wright brothers overcame. Flying faster than the > speed of sound was exactly the same situation -- obviously not > physically impossible (people had already made things other than manned > aircraft travel faster than sound) but beyond what most considered the > engineering capabilities of the time. > > The reason FTL is considered impossible is that it's not allowed by the > laws of physics, and is therefore not an engineering limitation. > Breaking the "light barrier" is nowhere near the same kind of problem as > breaking the sound barrier. >From what I understand, you can't 'break' the speed of light, but jump past it theoretically. > > Science is about _critical_ exchange of ideas, not just accepting any > random thoguhts that people have, ignorant or not. Float a wrong idea, > and everyone who thinks about it will tell you it's wrong, and why. > Many more wrong ideas get sent around than right ideas, which is part of > the process. If your idea really is right, it will stand up to critical > analysis and experimental verification. Alcubierre's idea stood up to critical analysis. One day I'm confident it will be tested experimentally. Unfortunately, I probably won't live to see FTL come about. But perhaps I can still make some form of contribution to science. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 16:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["452" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "16:50:38" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "14" "RE: starship-design: Apology" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA12916 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 16:51:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA12901 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 16:51:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p44.gnt.com [204.49.68.249]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA09738 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 18:51:43 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 18:51:36 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCAE63.4038F080.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 12 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 451 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Apology Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 16:50:38 -0500 Timothy, Not that I doubt you but, how did you come up with 20 kJ? even allowing for only a partial incomplete (messy) reaction I would have assumed it would be somewhat more. Of course, I have never really had anything to do with antimatter, only nuclear and chemical explosives. As far as the trip to Mars goes, the antiprotons are for ACMF (Antiproton Catalyzed Micro Fusion/fission) which is more than adequate for a fast 4 month trip. Lee From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 20:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2046" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "23:52:20" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "59" "Re: RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA10023 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 20:52:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout01.mail.aol.com (emout01.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.92]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA10013 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 20:52:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout01.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA25604; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 23:52:20 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970821235219_1192003718@emout01.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2045 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 23:52:20 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/19/97 6:51:53 PM, you wrote: >Kelly, > >> Initiate, is different from maintaining. Lots of magnetic confinement >> systems have started fusion. But just about none got out more power then >> they put in, and few could keep the system runing more then a tiny fraction >> of a secound. Magnetic confinement is considered a NASTY way to try to do >> this. Comercial concerns have pretty well written it off as unusable (much >> to the anoyence of U.S. government researchers). > >Gee, it has been a long time since I thought about this particular concept. I >was not aware/did not know the status of stellarator research, I just sort of >half remembered it from years ago. IF I remember correctly, a "stellarator" was >sort of a hybrid pinch/confinement/accelerator concept that was never even >designed to generate continuous sustained fusion. It was simply a research tool >to INITIATE a fusion burn long enough to gain additional information to design >more capable reactors. > >My thought however, is that a stellerator could be easily improved using >TODAY'S technology to produce a continuous reaction just as long as we keep >stuffing fuel down the accelerator end. This could be used for a Bussard ramjet, >a pellet track, both, whatever... Hard to say. It might work. But with fuel blasting through it at relatavistic speeds... All forms of magnetic confinement/compression have been beating themself blood trying to make it work. So mucg time and money spent with so little results makes me cynical. >An unrelated comment: in a previous discussion on another thread you were >discussing heat gain. Someone said something to the effect that we would have >to physically tap the exhaust stream for power and that this would create >some sort of weak point for excess heat transfer (I know I am paraphrasing and >I may even be misremembering). There is absolutely know need for ANY physical >connection to the exhaust stream. It can be tapped for power easily and simply >using MHD. Agreed. >Lee From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 20:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["6369" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "23:53:12" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "144" "Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA10162 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 20:53:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout09.mail.aol.com (emout09.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.24]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA10139 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 20:53:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout09.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA11620; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 23:53:12 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970821235233_1487186671@emout09.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 6368 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 23:53:12 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/19/97 11:21:57 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>>The lateral loads on the scoop is a problem, which is why the mass of >>>each pellet must be minimized, and the precision of the pellet >>>shooters maximized. > >>Over interstellar distences? > >Do I have to repeat myself? > >The pellet shooters are installed on the fuel packets. > >The fuel packets are accelerated to relativistic velocities >with constant course corrections during the acceleration >run so that they arrive near the target system with an error of >10km or less. > >They then shoot pellets along a track to intercept the starship's >ramscoop with the pellet shooter, which has a muzzle velocity of >around 1km/s (easily enough to make up for a 10km error in the >packet's position). Oh. NO That wasn't clear from your descriptions. True., that overcomes my comment. But then the fuel packets are useless. They have to fly as far, and about as fast as the ship. So you might as well just dock them and off load the fuel, or integrate them into the ship. Effectivly you have an exotice, fragmented, fuel/sail configuration. How do you intend to slow the fuel launchers at the target star system? Unless they are going slowly, they couldn't launch to the ship without the ship haveing high speed impacts. >These fuel packets are a big tank of fuel pellets along with a >relatively small fission power supply and a pellet shooter. >Considering the plasma dynamic accelerator acheives a muzzle velocity >of 80km/s in a few centimeters, a 1km/s muzzle velocity pellet >shooter shouldn't have to be very big. > >>Anyway a multiple projectile stream wouldn't follow a line. It would diverge >>into a scatter shot. Like a shotgun blast. You couldn't 'follow' the stream >>to keep it centered. If you could, you wouldn't need a scoop structure. > >Each fuel packet is responsible for laying down quite a lenth of >track. Assuming a length of 100km and a muzzle velocity of 1km/s, >that means firing pellets with at least 50sec between firing and >interception (probably much more, depending on how long it takes >for the pellet shooter to fire the entire load of fuel pellets). > >It would be naive to think that at even 100km a pellet gun could >hit a bullseye. > >>>>Since the plasma starts out as frozen particals (high density). The flash >>>>heating as the pellets slam into the scoop fields would cause uneven >>inertial >>>>confinement fusion in the particals as they hit the collector fields. > >>>I'm pessimistic about how much heating could acheive just from the >>>flash heating alone. If it's enough to initiate fusion, then so much >>>the better--it saves the trouble of doing so magnetically. The >>>kinetic energy from the fusion is still in the products and will >>>still be there when the pass through the magnetic nozzle. > >>No the energy would be released in the scop system ahead of the ship. > >This is just fine. The energy is still in increased kinetic energy >of the particles, which are still funnelled along the magnetic lines >of the ramscoop. It will still be turned into extra forward thrust >when the magnetic nozzle directs those products rearward. > >You have to look at this in terms of the inertial frame of the >starship, because that is where the magnetic field of the ramjet >are conservative. Exactly. Fuel impacts frount of ship. That thrust pushes backwards on the ship through the magnetic fields. Unless the later fields accelerate the fuel backward, you have a negative thrust. Which would have to be overcome by the thrust of the drive system. If (as I was assuming the fuel was going much slower than the ship). This drag would be considerable. So you'ld wind up having to accelerate the fuel up to ship speed. With the obvious geometric explosion of fuel needed. >Anyway, I must repeat that I really doubt the flash heating alone >could initiate fusion. As I said before, there is no compression. >It's not like the front part of the pellet suddenly hits a brick >wall of magnetic field while the rear part of the pellet slams >into it--only the differential between the strength of the magnetic >field encountered by the front part and the rear part is significant, >and this is minimized by having a small pellet. I was assuming a slow speed fuel track ahead of the ship. The high G thrust on the pellats needed to accelerate slow fuel, up to relatavistic speeds ship speeds. Obviousl the ship can't get boost out of fuel blasting threw the engines in a 1/100,000th of a secound. You'ld be hard pressed to get a fusion reaction that fast. >If you look at inertial confinement concepts, you see that the >primary purpose of the lasers impacting the fuel pellet is to >_compress_ the pellet, at which point it heats up due to the >compression. Even in H-bombs, the way to acheive high yields is >by using the fission bomb to implode the fusion warhead (which >heats it up to fusion levels). > >>>_Stable_ magnetic confinement beyond what we can already acheive is >>>unnecessary for pulsed fusion designs, of which this ramjet is one. > >>Given the power levels we'ld need for these ships you'ld need a prety >>continuous flow of a lot of fuel mass. I doubt you can assume the magnetic >>fields would have time to stabalize out. > >It depends on what you mean by "continuous". For purposes of being >a pulsed fusion system where each pulse has no significant effect >on the next, let's say only one pellet is processed through the >ramscoop at a time. > >Let's say each pellet is 1g, the ramscoop is 1km long, and the >current relative speed to the pellets is .1 c. That still implies >a mass rate of 300kg/s. Assuming the added velocity is merely >100km/s (equivalent to 10,000 secs Isp), the thrust provided is >30,000,000 newtons. If the starship is 10,000,000kg, then >this thrust provides .3 gees. > >In practice, 10 pellets at a time would still be separated by >100m each, effectively separating their reactions from each >other while evenning out the loads on the starship. That would >provide 3 gees acceleration. Also, pellet separation will be >larger at velocities greater than .1 c. That also implies the fuel is only within the influence of the ship foe 1/30,000th of a secound. In that time you must compress, fuse, and tap thrust out of the fuel stream. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 21 20:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3824" "Thu" "21" "August" "1997" "23:54:22" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "92" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA10341 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 20:54:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA10317 for ; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 20:54:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA27739; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 23:54:22 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970821235227_1951050735@emout07.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3823 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 23:54:22 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/19/97 11:04:14 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/18/97 9:17:14 AM, you wrote: > >>>>>As for the efficacy of electric field containment for fusion power, >>>>>I'll admit I haven't read the reference articles on this compressions >>>>>system, but it seems very optimistic to assume it will even work well >>>>>enough to break even, much less provide power. > >>>>I can't follow this. Why do you assume its so dificult? > >>>Because if it were so easy, it would already be giving us cheap >>>fusion power. > >>That asumes theirs a market for it. Specifically one big enough to pay for >>the R&D. Comercial research in exotic power sources, especially ones >>invoving nuclear, died when the fuel crises evaporated. > >At the very least, this means that there is a significant R&D cost >associated with it. However, the potential profit is so great, >that the perceived risk must also be great for commercial concerns >to avoid it. (The perceived risk being that even after all that >R&D it won't work.) You forget. We are awash in cheap fuel, few new power plants of anykind are planed in the next 20+ years, and a fusion plant might mot be any cheaper then conventional. Add to that the general expectation (and stated claims by them) that eco groups will attack Fusion plants as rabidly as nuclear plants (the power companies are still smarting over that), and you have some very reluctant investors. >>The system I'm reffering to is agreed (even by the government researchers) to >>be a more promising design then Magnetic fusion (possibly more then laser >>fusion). But of course no new research programs are scheduled to be funded. >> (Mag fusion programs are grand fathered in, but only at minimal levels.) > >I personally think magnetic target fusion offers the brightest >potential (it's a pulsed fusion concept), but even so the concept >is too new and the technology too immature to bank on it. The >numbers look a _lot_ more acheivable than either magnetic >confinement or inertial confinement. Haven't heard of it. Whats it like? >>>>Certainly it couldn't require more power then the scoop or >>>>conventional magnetic confinment systems. > >>>There are difficulties in dealing with charged plasma, since >>>the more charged it is, the more it wants to fly apart (even >>>more). The less charged it is, the more you need a stronger >>>electric potential difference. Setting up that potential >>>difference in the right geometry is challenging as well. > >>The geometry for this system is a hollow sphere by the way. > >Huh? A conductive hollow sphere cannot generate an electric >potential gradient inside it. You'd have to inject electrons >into the center in order to attract the (positively charged) >fuel particles to it, and rely on the charge of those electrons >alone to acheive compression. You charge the hollow sphere. The ionized gas is repeled from it toward the center. Which effectivly gets a oposite charge. Fusion products blast outward, out of the potential well. >Much better to have a hyperbolic electric charge potential trap >(along with the injected electrons to increase the potential >difference). > >But tell me if I'm missing something. > >>>Magnetic plasma confinement is a pain, but it is a pain we know. >>>The technology we do have is mature, so it can be safely used in >>>speculations of future technology. We can and do acheive fusion >>>with magnetic confinement. We just don't do it well enough to >>>acheive sustained fusion. > >>We've acheaved fusion be several means. That doesn't mean they'ld work in a >>star drive. Or that they are stable. Magnetic confinment is legendary for >>its instability. > >Yes, which is why I only consider pulsed fusion possibilities. From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 09:19 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1897" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "11:20:00" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "43" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA09837 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 09:19:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA09818 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 09:19:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA29582; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 11:20:00 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708221620.AA29582@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <33FBC315.3FDF@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 20, 97 09:24:53 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1896 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 11:20:00 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Can you please explain why the backwards in time travel occurs? If the >Causality violation has to do with the light arrival from the object, I >have a solution you might want to consider. Time travel in FTL might not >occur- see my earlier mention of Stephen Hawking's time protection >theory. Causality violations do not accur if you do not travel LOCALLY >FTL, which is not what I'm suggesting doing. Untrue. You simply don't understand the physics well enough. The way to get FTL without time travel in general relativity is to assume (or make) spacetime hyperbolic. That means an average negative energy density in the universe, so it's not surprising that Alcubierre's drive requires more energy in exotic matter than there is in the entire universe. >If you construct the >spacetime metric correctly, proper time will be EXACTLY THE SAME as >apparent time. That's besides the point. Alcubierre's metric is carefully conceived of to prevent time dilation and time travel, but as he says in his paper: }As a final comment, I will just mention the fact that even though the }spacetime described by the metric~(\ref{final_metric}) is globally }hyperbolic, and hence contains no closed causal curves, it is probably }not very difficult to construct a spacetime that does contain such }curves using a similar idea to the one presented here. In other words, although this metric doesn't result in time travel, a similar one (using exotic matter as well) would. >This is real stuff, and I know it. I'm not just making this up. Unfortunately, you don't understand the concepts of special relativity, much less general relativity, to understand what this "real stuff" is. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 11:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["886" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "12:17:06" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "19" "starship-design: FTL and current physics" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA20200 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 11:17:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA20174 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 11:17:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-75.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-75.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.75]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA30121 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 14:17:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33FDE5B1.5B55@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 885 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL and current physics Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:17:06 -0700 Everyone: Alcubierre DID NOT say that the amount of exotic matter had to be larger than the universe. (Even if so, no problem when you have 10^94g/cm of negative energy density every where...don't ask. You don't want to know.) I would like to know why assymetrical inertia is physically impossible. I don't see why it would be. And for God's sake, don't send the resposnse as a nasty comment. Have any of you stopped to think about something just a bit possible: we know less than there is to know? Newton works at low speed. He flunks at high speed, and Einstein takes over. Who is to say that it ends there? Maybe Einstien flunks at FTL, and ??? takes over. Maybe there is some other law or something we don't yet know that permits FTL non-causality violating. Lets drop this argument right here: FTL is impossible with current physics. No additions, no subtractions. Just that. From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 12:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2465" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "14:01:18" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "63" "Re: starship-design: FTL and current physics" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA04761 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:00:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA04740 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:00:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA18224; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 14:01:18 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708221901.AA18224@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <33FDE5B1.5B55@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 22, 97 12:17:06 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2464 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and current physics Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 14:01:18 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Everyone: >Alcubierre DID NOT say that the amount of exotic matter had to be larger >than the universe. That's right, because he never bothered to calculate how much would be needed. He didn't even determine any way to create the metric, other than the obvious part that it would somehow require negative energy densities. Michael Pfenning and L.H. Ford did bother to calculate how much would be required in their paper "The unphysical nature of 'Warp Drive'". >(Even if so, no problem when you have 10^94g/cm of >negative energy density every where...don't ask. You don't want to >know.) We probably don't. >I would like to know why assymetrical inertia is physically impossible. >I don't see why it would be. And for God's sake, don't send the >resposnse as a nasty comment. Because of conservation of momentum, which everything we have observed so far and know about physics so far conforms to. At the very least, it applies to every sort of mechanism involving moving weights around. Maybe conservation of momentum isn't valid. Everything we've observed so far conforms to it, though. >Have any of you stopped to think about something just a bit possible: we >know less than there is to know? Actually, every scientist is keenly aware of how what we don't know dwarfs what we do know. That doesn't mean we don't know anything. >Newton works at low speed. He flunks at >high speed, and Einstein takes over. Who is to say that it ends there? Maybe it doesn't "end there". But maybe it does. One thing's for sure, we can't design a starship around principles which have yet to even be observed, much less understood. Everything we've observed seems to conform with general relativity as well as precisely as we can detect things, and we _have_ really pushed the boundaries right up next to the speed of light (with particle accelerators). Relativity is one of the most experimentally tested theories ever, tested in many different ways and by countless skeptics. That's a lot more than could be said of Newtonian motion, which astronomers observed did not predict the motion of planets exactly right (in real life, planetary orbits precess). Even at these "low" speeds, Newtonian classical mechanics was known to be flawed. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 12:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1053" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "12:06:26" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "18" "starship-design: FTL and current physics" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA07426 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:06:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA07413 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:06:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA23974 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:05:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA16131; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:06:26 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708221906.MAA16131@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <33FDE5B1.5B55@sunherald.infi.net> References: <33FDE5B1.5B55@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1052 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL and current physics Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:06:26 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > Have any of you stopped to think about something just a bit possible: we > know less than there is to know? Newton works at low speed. He flunks at > high speed, and Einstein takes over. Who is to say that it ends there? > Maybe Einstien flunks at FTL, and ??? takes over. Maybe there is some > other law or something we don't yet know that permits FTL non-causality > violating. Lets drop this argument right here: FTL is impossible with > current physics. No additions, no subtractions. Just that. I'm glad you're finally willing to accept the design limitations that the rest of us have agreed to work within, but I still wish you'd realize that this is not a matter of "amateurs" vs. "professionals" or an attitude that we know all there is to know. It is simply that we are choosing to design starships based on what we know, not what we might someday know or what we wish were true. That's all there is to it, and it does you no good to argue against opinions that you think we have that we actually don't. From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 12:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["7483" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "14:52:18" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "162" "Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA22448 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:51:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA22427 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 12:51:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA23861; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 14:52:19 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708221952.AA23861@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970821235233_1487186671@emout09.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 21, 97 11:53:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 7482 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 14:52:18 -0500 (CDT) I feel like I'm talking in circles, constantly having to repeat the same things to the same responces. We already went over this at the start of this pellet track discussion. KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/19/97 11:21:57 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >wrote: >>Do I have to repeat myself? >>The pellet shooters are installed on the fuel packets. >>The fuel packets are accelerated to relativistic velocities >>with constant course corrections during the acceleration >>run so that they arrive near the target system with an error of >>10km or less. >>They then shoot pellets along a track to intercept the starship's >>ramscoop with the pellet shooter, which has a muzzle velocity of >>around 1km/s (easily enough to make up for a 10km error in the >>packet's position). >Oh. NO That wasn't clear from your descriptions. I did describe it precisely before. I only quote it again here so hopefully I won't have to repeat it yet again. >True., that overcomes my comment. But then the fuel packets are useless. > They have to fly as far, and about as fast as the ship. So you might as >well just dock them and off load the fuel, or integrate them into the ship. > Effectivly you have an exotice, fragmented, fuel/sail configuration. >How do you intend to slow the fuel launchers at the target star system? > Unless they are going slowly, they couldn't launch to the ship without the >ship haveing high speed impacts. Oh NO! Not this again! This is how it all started in the first place! 1. The advantage over integrating the fuel in the ship is that you can spread the launch of the fuel packets over a long period of time. My example before was how a .5 cruising starship to Bernard's Star could have the deceleration track fuel packet drones launched over a period of 3 years (starting after the starship's acceleration run--all resources prior to launch are devoted to the acceleration run and its track). 2. There is no intention to slow the pellet launchers at the star system. There never was, there never will be. Anything that could have slowed down the pellet launchers would work just as well for the starship. 3. The pellets fired from the pellet launchers will indeed be moving fast compared to the starship. 4. There aren't any high speed physical impacts. Remember the whole discussion of how the magnetic fields of the magscoop conservatively accelerates the incoming plasma? 5. The high speed of the pellets is an inherent part of the ramjet, in that it provides the energy to compress the pellet's plasma to initiate fusion. 6. There is an advantage to the ramjet over a normal rocket in that its propellant requirements grow more gently than a rocket does, when the desired delta-v is much greater than the Isp * gee. >>>No the energy would be released in the scop system ahead of the ship. >>This is just fine. The energy is still in increased kinetic energy >>of the particles, which are still funnelled along the magnetic lines >>of the ramscoop. It will still be turned into extra forward thrust >>when the magnetic nozzle directs those products rearward. >>You have to look at this in terms of the inertial frame of the >>starship, because that is where the magnetic field of the ramjet >>are conservative. >Exactly. Fuel impacts frount of ship. That thrust pushes backwards on the >ship through the magnetic fields. Unless the later fields accelerate the >fuel backward, you have a negative thrust. This is exactly what the magnetic nozzle does. But how can it do so if it inputs no energy into the plasma, you ask? Because the ramscoop didn't remove energy from the plasma in the first place. Magnetic fields are conservative. Like I said, you have to look at in terms of the inertial frame of the ship. If you don't, then it's a lot more complicated because of the changing (moving) magnetic fields, which aren't conservative. A bit of plasma enters the viscinity of the starship in the "backwards" direction with a certain speed V. That means it starts off with a kinetic energy of 1/2 V*V*M (M is mass of the bit of plasma). Somewhere--it doesn't really matter where--the kinetic energy is increased to some higher value due to fusion. This kinetic energy will be 1/2 S*S*M, where S is a certain value greater than V. The bit of plasma will leave the viscinity of the starship with kinetic energy of 1/2 S*S*M, because the only forces acting on it are from the fixed magnetic field, which is conservative. Thus, it will leave with a speed of S. The only question is, in what direction? Assuming none of the fusion products escape out the front (because their speed overcame their incoming ramming speed), they are moving almost straight backwards, because of the magnetic nozzle. So afterward, we have a bit of plasma which is moving backward with velocity S, greater than the initial speed V. That means that the momentum of the bit of plasma has changed in the backward direction. But wait--there's conservation of momentum! In a closed system (the ship + the pellet), there can't be any overall change in momentum. We know the pellet has a change in momentum in the backward direction. That means _something_ has a change in momentum in the forward direction. The only other thing out there is the ship. Therefore, there is a forward change in momentum in the ship. >>Anyway, I must repeat that I really doubt the flash heating alone >>could initiate fusion. As I said before, there is no compression. >>It's not like the front part of the pellet suddenly hits a brick >>wall of magnetic field while the rear part of the pellet slams >>into it--only the differential between the strength of the magnetic >>field encountered by the front part and the rear part is significant, >>and this is minimized by having a small pellet. >I was assuming a slow speed fuel track ahead of the ship. So was I, and you are right in that immense accelerations are applied to the pellet. However, these accelerations are applied evenly to the pellet, leaving just the "tidal force" of the magnetic field gradient to compress/expand the pellet. It's like how the force of gravity acts on an object in free fall. >The high G thrust >on the pellats needed to accelerate slow fuel, up to relatavistic speeds ship >speeds. Obviousl the ship can't get boost out of fuel blasting threw the >engines in a 1/100,000th of a secound. You'ld be hard pressed to get a >fusion reaction that fast. No, because the faster the ramscoop goes, the faster it compresses the pellets. The implosion speed is proportional to the speed of the incoming pellets, so the fusion cross section is proportionately increased, so the rate of the reaction is proportionately increased. The yeilds would be fantastic--if we could inject solid fuel pellets at relativistic speeds on the ground into a reactor, we'd get awesome fusion yeilds. Unfortunately, that requires getting those solid fuel pellets to relativistic speeds in the first place, something which is probably impossible in practice, and it also requires an efficient way to tap energy from the resulting reaction (otherwise, you lose a good fraction of the energy used to accelerate the pellet in the first place). -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 13:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["157" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "14:06:08" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "7" "starship-design: Negative Matter" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA27338 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 13:06:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA27309 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 13:06:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-75.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-70.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.70]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA11013 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 16:06:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <33FDFF3F.6E9A@sunherald.infi.net> Organization: Good question! X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 156 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Negative Matter Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 14:06:08 -0700 Isaac: Can you tell me either what the paper says and why that much negative matter would be required, or tell me where I can get a copy? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 13:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5225" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "15:28:53" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "111" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA05369 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 13:28:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id NAA05316 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 13:28:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA28105; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 15:28:54 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708222028.AA28105@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970821235227_1951050735@emout07.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 21, 97 11:54:22 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5224 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 15:28:53 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/19/97 11:04:14 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >wrote: >>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>In a message dated 8/18/97 9:17:14 AM, you wrote: >>>>>>As for the efficacy of electric field containment for fusion power, >>>>>>I'll admit I haven't read the reference articles on this compressions >>>>>>system, but it seems very optimistic to assume it will even work well >>>>>>enough to break even, much less provide power. >>>>>I can't follow this. Why do you assume its so dificult? >>>>Because if it were so easy, it would already be giving us cheap >>>>fusion power. >>>That asumes theirs a market for it. Specifically one big enough to pay for >>>the R&D. Comercial research in exotic power sources, especially ones >>>invoving nuclear, died when the fuel crises evaporated. >>At the very least, this means that there is a significant R&D cost >>associated with it. However, the potential profit is so great, >>that the perceived risk must also be great for commercial concerns >>to avoid it. (The perceived risk being that even after all that >>R&D it won't work.) >You forget. We are awash in cheap fuel, few new power plants of anykind are >planed in the next 20+ years, and a fusion plant might mot be any cheaper >then conventional. Add to that the general expectation (and stated claims by >them) that eco groups will attack Fusion plants as rabidly as nuclear plants >(the power companies are still smarting over that), and you have some very >reluctant investors. Actually, a fusion plant only has to compete with fission plants to acheive great profit potential. The initial and running costs for motive fission plants are so great that they're now restricted to aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The running costs for any practical fusion plant would be much less than fission or conventional, so that just leaves initial cost--including R&D. For various reasons, naval power plant sales would be the first venue for any "easy" fusion power plant. Civilian power plants, bigger and with more restrictions, would come later--but not very much later if it were so easy. >>I personally think magnetic target fusion offers the brightest >>potential (it's a pulsed fusion concept), but even so the concept >>is too new and the technology too immature to bank on it. The >>numbers look a _lot_ more acheivable than either magnetic >>confinement or inertial confinement. >Haven't heard of it. Whats it like? It is sort of a mix between traditional magnetic confinement fusion and inertial confinement fusion. For some reason, no one thought of doing it until a couple years ago. The idea is to start off with a magnetically contained bit of plasma, like what we can acheive in magnetic confinement fusion reactors today. This bit of plasma is then compressed using a surge of electricity through the magnetic coils. This initiates a relatively extended burst of inertial confinement fusion. The temperature and density of the initial plasma obviously doesn't have to be anywhere near what's needed for fusion, while the compression is provided by a pulse of magnetic field (which is easier to do than a pulse of lasers) over a period of time longer than the laser pulse of ICF. The products also fuse over a longer period of time, making it easier to tap energy from the products. The fusion ramjet concept is similar to this, except that the pulse of magnetic field is provided by the motion of the pellet plasma into a fixed "bottleneck" of strong magnetic field. >>>>There are difficulties in dealing with charged plasma, since >>>>the more charged it is, the more it wants to fly apart (even >>>>more). The less charged it is, the more you need a stronger >>>>electric potential difference. Setting up that potential >>>>difference in the right geometry is challenging as well. >>>The geometry for this system is a hollow sphere by the way. >>Huh? A conductive hollow sphere cannot generate an electric >>potential gradient inside it. You'd have to inject electrons >>into the center in order to attract the (positively charged) >>fuel particles to it, and rely on the charge of those electrons >>alone to acheive compression. >You charge the hollow sphere. The ionized gas is repeled from it toward the >center. Which effectivly gets a oposite charge. Fusion products blast >outward, out of the potential well. This does not work. The ionized gas will _not_ be repelled from the surface of the sphere. Honest. The net force on a charged particle on the inside of an evenly charged hollow sphere is 0. For the same reason, you would be weightless on the inside of a "hollow Earth", and couldn't stand on it. This has to do with the fact that both gravity and electric force are inversely proportional to the square of the distance. Any second semester Physics course with Calculus uses this example. You know, you get a homework assignment where you have to derive the electric field around various geometrically shaped objects. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 19:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["525" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "20:57:27" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "19" "RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA22006 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 19:18:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA21949 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 19:18:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p13.gnt.com [204.49.68.218]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA06278 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:18:44 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:18:43 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCAF40.F7D91CA0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 17 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 524 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 20:57:27 -0500 Kelly, > All forms of magnetic confinement/compression have been beating themselves > blood trying to make it work. So mucg time and money spent with so little > results makes me cynical. I understand and agree to some extent with your cynicism, but it seems to me that relativistic velocities would help rather than hinder such an engine. After all, you are getting what amounts to inertial confinement for free and even the commercial companies agree (at the moment) that inertial confinement works best. Lee From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 19:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["722" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "21:10:53" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "25" "RE: starship-design: FTL and current physics" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA22083 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 19:18:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA22023 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 19:18:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p13.gnt.com [204.49.68.218]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA06286 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:18:48 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:18:47 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCAF40.FA90E9A0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 23 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 721 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL and current physics Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:10:53 -0500 Kyle, You are missing the point. NOBODY disagrees that there may be physics out there that we don't understand yet, or perhaps even suspect yet. The point is simply that as we currently understand the universe, what you are asking is NOT POSSIBLE. I will be the first to admit that our understanding is imperfect at best, but it is all we have to go on. The purpose of this group is to design a starship BASED ON CURRENTLY ACCEPTED PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES, not on vaporware. If you really must concentrate on exotic drives please try to limit yourself to antimatter, that is just about the upper bounds of what anyone here is willing to SERIOUSLY consider. Cuimnich air na daoine o'n d'thainig thu, Lee From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 19:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["91" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "21:18:25" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" "<01BCAF40.FCAA05A0.lparker@cacaphony.net>" "5" "starship-design: Unknown" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA22161 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 19:18:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA22102 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 19:18:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p13.gnt.com [204.49.68.218]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA06295 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:18:52 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:18:51 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCAF40.FCAA05A0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 3 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 90 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Unknown Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:18:25 -0500 Did anyone else get a bunch of blank messages from "unknown" or was I the only one? Lee From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 21:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["390" "Sat" "23" "August" "1997" "06:12:32" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "16" "Re: starship-design: Unknown" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA12538 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:12:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA12518 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:12:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-007.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x27ZU-000FWIC; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 06:13:08 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 389 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Unknown Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 06:12:32 +0100 Lee, You asked: >Did anyone else get a bunch of blank messages from "unknown" or was I the >only one? I haven't had such messages. Timothy BTW. What means "Cuimnich air na daoine o'n d'thainig thu". You used it before as a footer. Then I tried to translating it for an hour using a Gealic dictionary I downloaded, but doing that I couldn't make more of it than some "dirty" message. From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 21:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1218" "Sat" "23" "August" "1997" "06:12:27" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "29" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA12680 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:13:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA12632 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:13:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-007.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x27ZO-000FWAC; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 06:13:02 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1217 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 06:12:27 +0100 Hello Steve, >>OK, I catch your drift. But... knowing that you move this fast with respect >>to the observed phenomenon, you can reconstruct what really(=in a frame at >>rest) happens and remove the apparent causality reversal. >>For those few that happen to see everything at once, they are at a loss, >>they will never be able to reconstruct what happened. > >There's your problem. There is no "frame at rest". Relativity has no >preferred frames. In the FTL case, there is no unique time ordering of >events (what if the "frame at rest" is really a "frame in motion"? You >can't prefer one over the other!) and hence no way to establish >causality. In the STL (slower-than-light) case, a unique time ordering >of events exists for all possible observers. Well, the calculations I did where compared to another (rest)frame. What worries and confuses me is that the event reversal only happens in certain frames and not in all frames. But I'll accept this as one of the oddities of relativisics. What I still do doubt about is whether this means that the particle can interfere with its own past. Or to use the infamous example of a FTL traveller, can he kill his mother to prevent his own birth? Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 21:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2165" "Sat" "23" "August" "1997" "06:12:29" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "46" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Isaac" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA12757 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:14:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA12733 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:14:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-007.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x27ZQ-000FWDC; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 06:13:04 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2164 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Isaac Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 06:12:29 +0100 Isaac, >Like I said, I don't know exactly what your equation is calculating. >You have a bunch of numbers but no generic equation. Oh boy, I had copied the formula sometime in the past but it must have been from an example where the two velocities where already opposite, hence the necessary minus signs where left out. Sorry, I wish I had noticed that long before. (You using 1.42 instead of 1.45 in the first letter didn't help either) OK, now we at least agree about the number. What I don't understand from your example is why the FTL-beam only travels back in time when it goes back to ship A. I would expect that it goes back in time regardless its direction and thus also arrives at ship B before it was sent! Can you explain why the direction of the FTL-beam is so important? >One thing, though, is that the message is being sent backwards in >time, so the sign of its velocity is the opposite of what you'd >expect. A message being sent backwards in time in the "south" >direction has a velocity in the "north" direction. That means that it appears as if the FTL beam originates twice from ship A. Once at 9:44 and once at 10:00. The beam from 9:44 just travels a bit slower and thus both messages arrive at the same time at ship B. The people on ship A experience a strange phenomenon at 9:44, their radio starts sending a message over which they have no control. They listen in on the conversation and thus know what they'll say at 10:00. So know they know about their future. Big deal, we know about our past, but can't change that either. So why should we think that we can actually change the future? (I'm sorry this turns towards philosophy, I wasn't intending this when I started this discussion. It may be a fundamental answer though.) >Like I said, the easiest way to see how a message is being sent back >in time is with space-time diagrams. Drawing spacetime diagrams can be a pain even without doing it in ASCII (especially for accelerated movement). I've been trying to draw some on a paper, but how does one draw simultaneity lines for an object that goes FTL? You seem to know how, can you describe in words or formulas? Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 21:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1186" "Sat" "23" "August" "1997" "06:12:31" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "34" "RE: starship-design: Apology" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA12895 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:15:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA12879 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:14:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-007.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x27ZS-000FWFC; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 06:13:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1185 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Apology Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 06:12:31 +0100 Hi Lee, >Not that I doubt you but, how did you come up with 20 kJ? even allowing >for only a partial incomplete (messy) reaction I would have assumed it >would be somewhat more. Of course, I have never really had anything to >do with antimatter, only nuclear and chemical explosives. I was a bit messy since I only responded to the prototype they talked about in the first paragraph: It is a prototype for a trap, not necessarily any larger, capable of carrying 10+14 antiprotons for up to 120 days... That's 1E14*1.67E-27 kg = 1.67E-13 kg With E=mc^2 that means 15 kJ (How I got 20kJ? I've no idea.) However at the bottom of the message they talk about an RFQ storage ring which should hold one microgram (=1E-9 kg). E=mc^2=(1E-9)*(3E8)^2=9E7 J So this prototype holds about 9E7 Joule (or 25 kWh). A bit more that the 20kJ but not even enough to keep a regular lightbulb burning for half an hour. I'm sorry to have made an uncomplete response before. >As far as the trip to Mars goes, the antiprotons are for ACMF (Antiproton >Catalyzed Micro Fusion/fission) which is more than adequate for a fast 4 >month trip. I wonder how much antiprotons they'll need. Timothy From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 22 23:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1759" "Fri" "22" "August" "1997" "23:18:00" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "32" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA03843 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 23:18:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA03831 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 23:18:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts12-line11.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.143]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA00834 for ; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 23:16:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA17620; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 23:18:00 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708230618.XAA17620@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1758 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 23:18:00 -0700 Timothy van der Linden writes: > >>OK, I catch your drift. But... knowing that you move this fast with respect > >>to the observed phenomenon, you can reconstruct what really(=in a frame at > >>rest) happens and remove the apparent causality reversal. > >>For those few that happen to see everything at once, they are at a loss, > >>they will never be able to reconstruct what happened. > > > >There's your problem. There is no "frame at rest". Relativity has no > >preferred frames. In the FTL case, there is no unique time ordering of > >events (what if the "frame at rest" is really a "frame in motion"? You > >can't prefer one over the other!) and hence no way to establish > >causality. In the STL (slower-than-light) case, a unique time ordering > >of events exists for all possible observers. > > Well, the calculations I did where compared to another (rest)frame. What > worries and confuses me is that the event reversal only happens in certain > frames and not in all frames. > But I'll accept this as one of the oddities of relativisics. You can't have another "rest" frame. If you're going to declare a particular frame to be the "rest" frame, you need to work the problem consistently with reference to that. The point, which you now seem to understand better, is that if events are connected by a spacelike (FTL) worldline, then not all observers agree on their time ordering, as opposed to the case of events connected by timelike or lightlike worldlines where all observers do agree on a time ordering. I'm not sure what you mean by "the event reversal happens in all frames". For any spacelike relation of events there are always some observers who see one time ordering and some who see the other time ordering. From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 23 19:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["99" "Sat" "23" "August" "1997" "21:28:19" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "7" "RE: starship-design: Unknown" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA03864 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 19:34:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA03852 for ; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 19:34:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p30.gnt.com [204.49.68.235]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA05329 for ; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 21:34:17 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 21:34:11 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB00C.4BDCF800.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 5 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 98 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Unknown Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 21:28:19 -0500 Timothy, It is supposed to mean something like "remember the men from whom you are sprung" Lee From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 23 19:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["73" "Sat" "23" "August" "1997" "21:33:02" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "10" "RE: starship-design: Apology" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA03878 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 19:34:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA03868 for ; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 19:34:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p30.gnt.com [204.49.68.235]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA05339 for ; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 21:34:23 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Sat, 23 Aug 1997 21:34:21 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB00C.51A9A620.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 8 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 72 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Apology Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 21:33:02 -0500 Timothy, > I wonder how much antiprotons they'll need. 10^17 Lee From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 24 19:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1467" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "04:45:16" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "42" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA28911 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 24 Aug 1997 19:45:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA28894 for ; Sun, 24 Aug 1997 19:45:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x2pAF-000FgsC; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 04:45:59 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1466 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 04:45:16 +0100 Hello again Steve, >You can't have another "rest" frame. If you're going to declare a >particular frame to be the "rest" frame, you need to work the problem >consistently with reference to that. I know this. What I wanted to suggest before was that in the frame of the initiator of the FTL bullet, things don't go reverse. So if other frames measure their relative velocity to the frame of the initiator, they'll be able to explain the reversed order of events. Example: We see a bullet flying backside first from A to B. The space time coordinate of the bullet leaving A is (0,0,0,0) and the coordinate of the bullet reaching B is (3.900,4.818,0,0) Measuring the relative velocity of A, it turns out to be moving towards you with a velocity of 0.9c Calculating what happened according to frame A: A happened at (0,0,0,0) and at B(-1,3,0,0) (The numbers are the reverse of the little task you gave me t'=gamma*(t-v*x)=2.29*(3.9-0.9*4.818)=-1 x'=gamma*(x-v*t)=2.29*(4.818-0.9*3.9)=3 ) Conclusion: They saw a bullet nose pointed forward coming from B, the opposite direction of your measurement! Of course this isn't surprising since spacelike coordinates may reverse the ordering of events, but at least we know that those who could influence the events didn't see any reversal of events. Knowing this, I would conclude that in the frame of the initiator, FTL cannot influence his past. Or in other words he cannot influence his past using FTL. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 24 19:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["194" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "04:45:15" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "13" "RE: starship-design: Apology" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA29008 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 24 Aug 1997 19:46:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA28998 for ; Sun, 24 Aug 1997 19:46:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-005.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x2pAD-000FgpC; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 04:45:57 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 193 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Apology Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 04:45:15 +0100 Lee, >>I wonder how much antiprotons they'll need. > >10^17 Huh, that few to initiate fusion for a trip to Mars? Then indeed the latter anti-proton trap is more than large enough. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 24 20:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["169" "Sun" "24" "August" "1997" "21:16:59" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "9" "starship-design: Signature" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA04317 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 24 Aug 1997 20:17:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA04308 for ; Sun, 24 Aug 1997 20:17:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-88.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-88.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.88]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA00826 for ; Sun, 24 Aug 1997 23:17:19 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <3401073B.1158@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 168 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Signature Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 21:16:59 -0700 Isaac: What does the signature file at the end of your messages say? Kyle Mcallister P.S.: I found that paper by Pfenning and Ford. Why 10^33Mgalaxy of mass needed? From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 05:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3587" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "06:52:24" "-0500" "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" "hous0042@tc.umn.edu" nil "89" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea and paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA03436 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 05:01:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (0@mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA03425 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 05:01:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pub-18-b-160.dialup.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Mon, 25 Aug 97 07:01:13 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <340171F7.6E6D@tc.umn.edu> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 3586 From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" Sender: owner-starship-design To: Starship design group Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea and paradox Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 06:52:24 -0500 Timothy van der Linden wrote: > Conclusion: > They saw a bullet nose pointed forward coming from B, the opposite direction > of your measurement! > Of course this isn't surprising since spacelike coordinates may reverse the > ordering of events, but at least we know that those who could influence the > events didn't see any reversal of events. > > Knowing this, I would conclude that in the frame of the initiator, FTL > cannot influence his past. Or in other words he cannot influence his past > using FTL. > > Timothy In a Sci-fi story I read (Thrice upon a time by P. Hogan, the problem of killing your mother was addressed rather well. The gist of it was this: TIME EVENT Age of A 1965 Person A born 0 1990 Person A invents time machine 25 1991 Person A travels back in time to 1960 26 1960 Person A arrives in past 26 1961 Person A kills progenitor 27 1990 no one invents time machine 56 There is no paradox, because for all intents and purposes, the person who arrives in 1960 is from a different universe. His arrival in 1960 is historical fact, no amount of killing in 1961 can change that. So what we have is a person who arrived in our universe without being born. Strange yes, but not forbidden. BTW, in the story, there is only one universe, but it gets re-written when a past altering event takes place. example 1: 1) time machine recieves random message from future. 2) time machine stores message without looking at it. 3) time machine generates random number and sends it back. 4) time machine compares two numbers (they match 100%) conclusion: Time machine works perfectly. example 2: 1) time machine recieves random message from future. 2) time machine stores message without looking at it. 3) time machine generates random number but doesn't send it. 4) time machine compares two numbers (they match 99%) Conclusion: some quantum variation (I told you this was sci-fi) changed the random number generator a little bit and the error was not "corrected" by sending the data back in time. example 3: 1) time machine recieves random message from future. 2) time machine reads message. 3) time machine attempts to send different number back. 4) time machine suffers breakdown 100% of time. conclusion: Universe entered infinite loop that was only broken when the machine suffered some random breakdown. number of iterations unknown (days, weeks, months, years?). Messages were actually sent and re-sent, but we don't know about that because the universe was re-written many times. It's only the breakdown of the machine that we remember, because that allowed us to go foreward with intact memories. All in all, I wouldn't worry about the time travel aspects of FTL, It is possible to have a self-consistent set of rules which allow time-travel but not paradoxes. But woe be unto you who tries to generate a pardox involing yourself, you are most likely to suffer some random aliment (heart attack, stroke whatever) before you can complete your task (at least, that's what we will all remember, even though you may actually have succeeded many times. -- Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html Webmaster http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 06:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["315" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "07:50:49" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "12" "RE: starship-design: Apology" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA15182 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 06:32:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA15162 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 06:32:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA10582 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 08:32:00 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 08:31:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB131.59D9EFA0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 10 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 314 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Apology Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 07:50:49 -0500 Timothy, > Huh, that few to initiate fusion for a trip to Mars? > Then indeed the latter anti-proton trap is more than large enough. It is really a pretty nice web site. They have already designed the ship and it looks pretty good. It is basically an outgrowth of Orion that has been refined considerably. Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 06:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["410" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "08:31:35" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "11" "RE: starship-design: FTL idea and paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA15201 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 06:32:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA15192 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 06:32:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA10591 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 08:32:04 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 08:32:02 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB131.5C670320.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 9 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 409 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL idea and paradox Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 08:31:35 -0500 Kevin and Timothy, Even Einstein believed that time was not a fixed constant. Perhaps it isn't even a straight line? Using your paradox stories, suppose that attempting to cause a paradox just results in something like a mobius strip - a closed reentrant universe with no beginning and no end. Sort of like your own little prison bubble of space-time! Just what you deserve for trying such a stunt... Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 09:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["522" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "18:45:14" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "15" "RE: starship-design: FTL idea and paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA04529 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 09:46:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA04195 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 09:45:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-019.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x32H8-000GifC; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:45:58 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 521 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL idea and paradox Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:45:14 +0100 Lee and Kevin, I'm not so much bothered whether timetravel is possible and whether or not paradoxes are a fact. I'm only interested in what happens using current theories. Or for that matter I'm trying to upgrade my understanding of the use of current theories regarding relativity. Like I wrote Kyle, theorizing about things is fun, but with loose rocks there is a multitude of possibilities that all have a similar likelyhood of being true. Picking out one that you like is fun, but has no value otherwise. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 11:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["627" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "14:28:51" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "15" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA15620 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 11:29:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA15599 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 11:29:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id O{E09076; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 14:25:57 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970825.142851.3798.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,9-13 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 626 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 14:28:51 -0400 Sorry I have'nt posted in a while, been busy getting children ready to start school and sick family members. I've been perusing this thread on FTL travel, and I have a question. My relativity is'nt what it should be, but all this talk of causality violations brings to mind objects travelling faster than sound. Now I know that this is'nt quite the same thing, but, could these causality violations just a result of limited sensing ability, ie, our sensors work only a light speed, but our (ships, torpedoes, comm systems) work FTL. Kind of like seeing an explosion before you hear it. Help me out here. Thanks Jim C. From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 12:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["447" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "13:53:06" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "14" "starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA17066 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 12:53:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA17046 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 12:53:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.106]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA07497 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 15:53:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <3401F0B2.5B0@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 446 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:53:06 -0700 Greetings: I have a question (don't I always?): If you dissapear from orbit above earth, and later on reappear in orbit of tau ceti I, is causality violated? If so, why? No one saw you. Kyle Mcallister I wonder if it would be possible to generate a baby universe around your ship, and move it FTL with you stationary in it. Is there a lower mass limit to baby universes? From what I've heard this would require alot of energy. Is this true? From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 13:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1819" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "13:30:05" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "38" "starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA00407 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:30:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA00309 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:30:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA13951 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:29:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA27557; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:30:05 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708252030.NAA27557@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <3401F0B2.5B0@sunherald.infi.net> References: <3401F0B2.5B0@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1818 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:30:05 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > Greetings: > > I have a question (don't I always?): > > If you dissapear from orbit above earth, and later on reappear in orbit > of tau ceti I, is causality violated? If so, why? No one saw you. Sure they did. If you reappear at Tau Ceti in less time than it would take for light to go from Earth to Tau Ceti, then observers won't agree on whether you disappeared from Earth and reappeared at Tau Ceti, or disappeared from Tau Ceti and reappeared at Earth. As for Timothy's question about whether someone can affect their own past using FTL, I believe you need a conspirator to do so, but if FTL is possible then so is affecting your own past via the conspirator. All the conspirator has to do is move fast enough (but still less than c) so that in his frame your FTL message appears to go backward in time, then send another FTL message to you in your past. For sufficiently fast FTL and with enough distance between you and your conspirator the relative velocity required can be very low. I believe Ken and Isaac have both posted accurate worked-out examples of this before, but I'll see if I can come up with my own later. What's important to understand is that if _anyone_ can observe FTL motion, then you can construct these paradoxes. It doesn't matter how you do it, whether the object is visible for all of its trip or not, or even if the FTL object itself believes it never exceeded c. > I wonder if it would be possible to generate a baby universe around your > ship, and move it FTL with you stationary in it. Is there a lower mass > limit to baby universes? From what I've heard this would require alot of > energy. Is this true? What's a baby universe? How do you make it? How do you get in and get out? Yes, it probably would take a lot of energy. From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 13:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3899" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "13:32:22" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "82" "starship-design: The speed of now" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA01941 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:32:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id NAA01924 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:32:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA06185; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:32:22 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA24406; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:32:22 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708252032.NAA24406@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3898 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: The speed of now Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:32:22 -0700 Jim writes: >Now I know that this is'nt quite the same >thing, but, could these causality violations just a result of limited >sensing ability, ie, our sensors work only a light speed, but our (ships, >torpedoes, comm systems) work FTL. Kind of like seeing an explosion >before you hear it. Help me out here. Read Gravity's Rainbow lately? Actually, these relativity issues aren't a result of only learning about things after the fact, via our light-speed information constraint. As others have pointed out, you can go back and reconstruct what ACTUALLY happened (from our perspective), and even after you do that, relavistic effects still do happen. But, in a sense, you're still right. Think about it this way: light travels at an infinite speed. If you were a photon, you would cross the entire universe in no time at all. So why does c appear finite to us? Because of the link between space and time; our idea of what is "now" and what is "1 second from now" is spatially-dependant. You can think of this as a perceptual problem, but the analogy is not between the speed of sound and light, but rather between the speed of sound and the speed of "now". It's a tough concept, but think of a 15-minute delayed signal travelling from Mars to Earth. If it arrives at Earth "now", we naturally consider "now" on Mars to be 15 minutes after the light left Mars, from which we can calculate a finite speed of light. But imagine that what we consider "now" at Mars is a confused notion, brought about by the large distance, and the real "now" on Mars is actually 15 minutes ago, when the light left in the first place. Think of ripples of "now-ness" propagating out through space, making our perception of simultaneity not reflect what is "really" one instant. In that sense, you are right: relativistic effects are only a result of our perception of a more fundamental reality. If you can manage to imagine this, that's the heart of relativity. What we consider simultaneousness is only our perception, not some absolute objective reality. The bottom line: Light appears to travel at a finite speed (from our perspective, or frame) but you could say it "actually" travels at an infinite speed. When looked at this way, the link between FTL and Time-Travel is obvious. Going FTL means travelling faster than an infinite speed. The only way to get somewhere faster than instenantously is to get there BEFORE you leave. Thus FTL = travel backwards in time. Now, from our perspective, things don't always look that way. An FTL Journey can APPEAR (to certain observers) to move forwards in time and still be faster than light, because to us light appears to be finite. But to other observers, the FTL journey will seem to go backwards in time. If you're asking what "really" happens, in a frame where "now" is not frame-dependant, the only way to be sure is to look at a value that doesn't change from frame to frame. We need to look at a measure of space-time distance that is independant of perspective. That value is D = [t ^ 2 - x ^ 2]. The distance between any two events, measured in terms of D (where t is the time-separation in seconds and x is the distance separation in light-seconds) will be identical in all frames. For light, D=0. Thus my assertion that light "really" travels infinitely fast. For STL, D>0. The time is always larger than the distance. But for FTL, D<0. You also get D<0 for local time travel; set x=0 (you don't go anywhere) and set t<0 (you go back in time). Therefore the D associated with time travel is equivalent with the D associated with FTL. It's very simple to take two FTL journeys, one out and one back, that gets you to return before you left. Just another way of thinking about it, I guess. Which, of course, was probably more confusing than illuminating... Ken From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 14:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4330" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "16:51:22" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "91" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Isaac" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA00502 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 14:50:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id OAA00476 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 14:50:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA14926; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 16:51:23 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708252151.AA14926@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 23, 97 06:12:29 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4329 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Isaac Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 16:51:22 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Isaac, >>Like I said, I don't know exactly what your equation is calculating. >>You have a bunch of numbers but no generic equation. >Oh boy, I had copied the formula sometime in the past but it must have been >from an example where the two velocities where already opposite, hence the >necessary minus signs where left out. Sorry, I wish I had noticed that long >before. >(You using 1.42 instead of 1.45 in the first letter didn't help either) I have a feeling I may have made an arithmetic error or a typo when I made up that concrete example. >OK, now we at least agree about the number. What I don't understand from >your example is why the FTL-beam only travels back in time when it goes back to >ship A. I would expect that it goes back in time regardless its direction >and thus also arrives at ship B before it was sent! Time is relative. As has already been stated in IMO confusing examples (not confusing to me, but confusing to someone unfamiliar with special relativity), different observers won't agree on what order things occured in with events outside each other's light cones. Despite the claims of someone on this list, this does _not_ _always_ imply a causality loop violation can be accomplished. It only does so if relativity is valid and space is convex/flat. The question of whether or not the message ship B receives occured before or after it was sent is not well defined. In some frames of reference, it looks like ship B received the message before it was sent from ship A (this includes ship B's frame of reference). In other frames of reference, it looks like ship B receives the message after it was sent (this includes ship A's frame of reference). However, _everyone_ in every frame of reference agrees that ship A receives the message before it sends its message. >Can you explain why the direction of the FTL-beam is so important? Because if ship B directed its beam away from ship A, 1) ship A would never receive the beam, and 2) the beam would be going forward in time in ship A's frame of reference (at a speed much less than 1.8c). >>One thing, though, is that the message is being sent backwards in >>time, so the sign of its velocity is the opposite of what you'd >>expect. A message being sent backwards in time in the "south" >>direction has a velocity in the "north" direction. >That means that it appears as if the FTL beam originates twice from ship A. >Once at 9:44 and once at 10:00. The beam from 9:44 just travels a bit slower >and thus both messages arrive at the same time at ship B. Yes, but the first beam "originates" from the Foo _receiver_. >The people on ship A experience a strange phenomenon at 9:44, their radio >starts sending a message over which they have no control. They listen in on >the conversation and thus know what they'll say at 10:00. So know they know >about their future. Big deal, we know about our past, but can't change that >either. Except they _can_ change their future. Ship A can link the Foo receiver and Foo transmitter to a computer, which is programmed to transmit "Yes" or "No", depending upon what the Foo receiver receives. Ship A's computer is programmed to say the opposite of what the Foo receiver gets. >So why should we think that we can actually change the future? >(I'm sorry this turns towards philosophy, I wasn't intending this when I >started this discussion. It may be a fundamental answer though.) It's not a matter of free will. It's a matter of us being able to actually make machines which behave reliably, like a computer program which outputs the opposite of its input. >>Like I said, the easiest way to see how a message is being sent back >>in time is with space-time diagrams. >Drawing spacetime diagrams can be a pain even without doing it in ASCII >(especially for accelerated movement). I've been trying to draw some on a >paper, but how does one draw simultaneity lines for an object that goes FTL? >You seem to know how, can you describe in words or formulas? I'll try to find an easy to find book which you can reference. Maybe there's even something on a web page. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 15:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["924" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "16:15:49" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "22" "starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA10472 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 15:16:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA10450 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 15:16:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-78.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.78]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA04213 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:16:04 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <34021224.751B@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 923 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 16:15:49 -0700 So you're saying that if I dissapear an object completely, light, energy, mass, everything, and then reappear it somewhere else faster than light can get there from the sender, it violates causality and travels back in time? Why? I't wasn't even in our universe any more. I figure if you could surround your vessel with an event horizon and maintain your ship stationary, while moving the horizon its in to a distan position FTL, causality isn't violated. I guess we won't know until we try it. If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years (FTL) of earths reference time, how much time passes aboard the ship? How far back in time do I go? (in earth's reference time)? If there was a way to generate an alcubierre field around my ship, and send it FTL, would this eleiminate the need for 10^33Mgalaxy of exotic matter? If you were disconnected from our reality, and travelled FTL, would causality violate? Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 16:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["140" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "17:00:00" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "8" "starship-design: Web pages" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA27195 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 16:00:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA27167 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 16:00:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-105.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.105]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA09250 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 19:00:14 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <34021C7F.5CE8@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 139 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Web pages Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 17:00:00 -0700 Here are some web pages about FTL: FTL: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9511068 Gravity Wave Rocket: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9702005 From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 18:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["838" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "13:20:09" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "25" "starship-design: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA08298 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:11:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA08283 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:11:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p37.gnt.com [204.49.68.242]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA19945 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:11:40 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:11:39 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB193.18CB0B40.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 23 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 837 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Paradox Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 13:20:09 -0500 Timothy, I tend to take the position that time travel is either: a) impossible, or b) possible but causality conserved (I invented that phrase). I withhold judgement on a) for lack of observational evidence ;-) For b) basically what I mean is that if there were paradoxes we should be able to design a thought experiment to prove or disprove them. Since we haven't, and lots of people have tried, I think that no matter what you can't have a paradox or at least not one which is observable which amounts to the same thing. Like the theory of gravity, I can offer no mechanism by which this is so, this just seems to make sense in light of what we currently know. Does anyone know of any arguments that would tend to prove or disprove the case for paradoxes? I don't mean FTL in particular, just time travel paradoxes. Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 18:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1249" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "20:28:54" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "29" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA15432 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:44:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA15418 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:44:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p45.gnt.com [204.49.68.250]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA22419 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:44:47 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:44:45 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB197.B8A30240.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 27 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1248 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:28:54 -0500 [Kyle] I have a question (don't I always?): If you dissapear from orbit above earth, and later on reappear in orbit of tau ceti I, is causality violated? If so, why? No one saw you. Kyle Mcallister [L. Parker] Kyle poses a rather interesting question which I am going to expand a little for the sake of clarity: If you can move from here to there instantaneously, or nearly instantaneously, is causality violated? If you go from here to Tau Ceti in 1 second of real time, you don't arrive at Tau Ceti 11 years ago you arrive at t+1 sec. There is no FTL communication that I can see and no causality violation. Now expanding on this theme and ignoring everything except relativity for the moment, there would seem to also be a point or factor if you will beyond c at which causality is violated but only if you exceed that factor. That point would seem to be 2c - the speed which would put you at your destination at exactly t+0. Delta t for this trip would be -1 putting your arrival at any destination at exactly the point necessary to produce a causality violation. Am I being to simplistic here, or does this adequately describe causality? If so, then time travel isn't necessarily impossible, just USEFUL time travel. Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 18:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["147" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "20:34:46" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "11" "RE: starship-design: The speed of now" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA15450 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:44:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA15441 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:44:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p45.gnt.com [204.49.68.250]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA22424 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:44:50 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:44:49 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB197.BB1F4CE0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 9 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 146 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: The speed of now Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:34:46 -0500 Ken, > Just another way of thinking about it, I guess. Which, of course, was > probably more confusing than illuminating... Uh huh... Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Aug 25 18:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2037" "Mon" "25" "August" "1997" "20:42:45" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "56" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA15474 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:44:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA15464 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:44:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p45.gnt.com [204.49.68.250]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA22431 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:44:54 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:44:53 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB197.BD1E7840.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 54 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2036 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:42:45 -0500 Steve, > Sure they did. If you reappear at Tau Ceti in less time than it would > take for light to go from Earth to Tau Ceti, then observers won't > agree on whether you disappeared from Earth and reappeared at Tau Ceti, > or disappeared from Tau Ceti and reappeared at Earth. Huh? So what? It doesn't matter if you get there before the light does as long as you can't get BACK before you left. Assuming that this mythical drive is ONLY instantaneous or nearly so, you can't get back to the original (rest) frame prior to leaving it. If: t0 = start time a = some finite interval of time close to zero Then: The trip requires 2a intervals and return time equals t0+2a=>0 No causality violation. Lee As for Timothy's question about whether someone can affect their own past using FTL, I believe you need a conspirator to do so, but if FTL is possible then so is affecting your own past via the conspirator. All the conspirator has to do is move fast enough (but still less than c) so that in his frame your FTL message appears to go backward in time, then send another FTL message to you in your past. For sufficiently fast FTL and with enough distance between you and your conspirator the relative velocity required can be very low. I believe Ken and Isaac have both posted accurate worked-out examples of this before, but I'll see if I can come up with my own later. What's important to understand is that if _anyone_ can observe FTL motion, then you can construct these paradoxes. It doesn't matter how you do it, whether the object is visible for all of its trip or not, or even if the FTL object itself believes it never exceeded c. > I wonder if it would be possible to generate a baby universe around your > ship, and move it FTL with you stationary in it. Is there a lower mass > limit to baby universes? From what I've heard this would require alot of > energy. Is this true? What's a baby universe? How do you make it? How do you get in and get out? Yes, it probably would take a lot of energy. From VM Tue Aug 26 09:17:17 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1322" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "11:10:50" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "28" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Content-Length: 1322 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA01512 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:10:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA01484 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:09:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA05638; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:10:51 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708261610.AA05638@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708252030.NAA27557@tzadkiel.efn.org> from "Steve VanDevender" at Aug 25, 97 01:30:05 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:10:50 -0500 (CDT) Steve VanDevender wrote: >As for Timothy's question about whether someone can affect their own >past using FTL, I believe you need a conspirator to do so, but if FTL is >possible then so is affecting your own past via the conspirator. All >the conspirator has to do is move fast enough (but still less than c) so >that in his frame your FTL message appears to go backward in time, then >send another FTL message to you in your past. You can be your own "conspirator" if you have FTL travel capability. If all you have is FTL communication, you can at least make your own conspirator in the form of some robotic drone which moves fast away relative to you. Note that none of this requires "continuous" travel/communication. If the travel/communication is by some sort of teleportation or manufactured wormhole or whatever, it can be done. All that's needed is some mechanism to send a message or an object to some place a certain amount faster than light would have gotten there in a way which works the same in all (sublight) reference frames. And also space has to be flat or convex (currently, we believe space to be convex). -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 09:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2018" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "11:33:34" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "47" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA10153 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:32:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA10139 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:32:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA08374; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:33:34 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708261633.AA08374@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <34021224.751B@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 25, 97 04:15:49 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2017 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:33:34 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >So you're saying that if I dissapear an object completely, light, >energy, mass, everything, and then reappear it somewhere else faster >than light can get there from the sender, it violates causality and >travels back in time? Why? Steve is confused. Time travel doesn't occur--necessarily--in this example. He has a definition of causality which isn't terribly useful, but I won't get into that. Basically, the problem comes when you travel back. If you decide to thrust a little bit at sublight speeds before going back, you can meet yourself before you left! Now _that_ is a causality violation (you can have an effect on your own past). In order to understand why, you have to at _least_ understand special relativity. >If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years (FTL) of earths reference time, >how much time passes aboard the ship? How far back in time do I go? (in >earth's reference time)? See that's the thing. Earth's reference frame is no more or less valid than any other reference frame. Thus, what you can do after you travel 1600 light years away is thrust your ship (sublight) away a bit, and then use the same drive to return to Earth. Due to the way relativity works, you will return to Earth _before_ you left. It simply doesn't matter how you specifically got there and what happenned to you in the meantime. The fact that the endpoints are outside each other's light cones is enough, along with general relativity in a flat or convex space (special relativity is a special case of general relativity on a flat space). >If there was a way to generate an alcubierre field around my ship, and >send it FTL, would this eleiminate the need for 10^33Mgalaxy of exotic >matter? Huh? The exotic matter is what's used to _create_ the Alcubierre metric in the first place. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 09:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2355" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "11:02:21" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "50" "Re: starship-design: Apology" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA11285 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:36:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA11255 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:36:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA04625; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:02:21 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708261602.AA04625@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCB131.59D9EFA0.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 25, 97 07:50:49 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2354 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Apology Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:02:21 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Timothy, >> Huh, that few to initiate fusion for a trip to Mars? >> Then indeed the latter anti-proton trap is more than large enough. >It is really a pretty nice web site. They have already designed the ship >and it looks pretty good. It is basically an outgrowth of Orion that has >been refined considerably. Speaking of fusion style Orion, I was just thinking that a "fusion bomb track" idea may be worth considering for interstellar propulsion. The idea is to use a magsail-Orion rocket, but to "boost" it with a track of fusion bombs. The ship would thus be dominated by a huge superconducting loop, layed out "horizontally" like a frisbee (the axis is perpendicular to the direction of motion). At high speeds, it would operate as an Orion rocket, propelled by H-bombs lobbed out rearward. At low speeds (relative to the track), it would be propelled by "fixed" H-bombs detonated just behind it. The biggest problem with this concept is that only a fraction of the momentum from the H-bomb detonations is used--I seem to recall something like 10% for the magsail-Orion concept. The H-bomb track will have a figure that's even worse because the bombs will probably be detonated further away, at imprefect angles, and the bombs themselves would be moving backwards to begin with (which is why I say the track shouldn't be used all the way). However, the "fusion bomb track" does offer these advantages: 1. Most of the technology is already available. The main stumbling blocks are developing large superconducting loops and large scale particle beam emitter production (assuming RPB propulsion is used for the deceleration track). 2. Targetting of the bomb tracks is simplified because little precision is needed in placing the bombs (compared to the pellet track concept). The most serious issue is avoiding and/or dealing with impacts with the ship's magsail, but small thrusters along the magsail would be enough to maneuver sections of sail out of the way of a misplaced bomb. Of course, there are certain political problems with manufacturing, transporting, and detonating millions of fusion bombs... -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 09:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1352" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "09:55:06" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "34" "Re: starship-design: Signature" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA11309 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:36:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA11286 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:36:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA26231; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:55:06 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708261455.AA26231@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <3401073B.1158@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 24, 97 09:16:59 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1351 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Signature Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:55:06 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Isaac: >What does the signature file at the end of your messages say? "Mari-san... Yokatta... ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi "Mari... Thank goodness... ...Thank goodness (you) are safe..." - Hiroshi Karigari It's just a quote from my favorite romantic comedy, "My Dear Marie". The main character, Hiroshi, is sort of a nerd/mad scientist who had a crush on Mari, so naturally he built an android modelled after her and even gave the android the same name! In the scene I quoted, Mari had just fallen from a ledge by a waterfall which she was going to commit suicide off of, but she managed to grab onto a tree root. Hiroshi, the idiot he was, tried to save her even though he was on the other side of the waterfall. He yells that quote out to her while he plummets. >P.S.: I found that paper by Pfenning and Ford. Why 10^33Mgalaxy of mass >needed? I don't understand all the details myself. However, Pfenning and Ford make certain assumptions about how difficult it would be to create negative matter if we could, so it's not impossible that there actually is some really really easy way to get the stuff. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 09:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3128" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "09:24:40" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "58" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA11415 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:36:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA11334 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:36:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA22865; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:24:41 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708261424.AA22865@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708230618.XAA17620@tzadkiel.efn.org> from "Steve VanDevender" at Aug 22, 97 11:18:00 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3127 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:24:40 -0500 (CDT) Steve VanDevender wrote: >Timothy van der Linden writes: > > Well, the calculations I did where compared to another (rest)frame. What > > worries and confuses me is that the event reversal only happens in certain > > frames and not in all frames. > > But I'll accept this as one of the oddities of relativisics. >You can't have another "rest" frame. If you're going to declare a >particular frame to be the "rest" frame, you need to work the problem >consistently with reference to that. >The point, which you now seem to understand better, is that if events >are connected by a spacelike (FTL) worldline, then not all observers >agree on their time ordering, as opposed to the case of events connected >by timelike or lightlike worldlines where all observers do agree on a >time ordering. I'm not sure what you mean by "the event reversal >happens in all frames". For any spacelike relation of events there are >always some observers who see one time ordering and some who see the >other time ordering. Absolutely wrong. Any string of events where any pair of events is within the light cones of each other will have a time ordering which _all_ (sublight) observers will agree upon. In particular, the time ordering of events happenning to any sublight moving entity will be unambiguous. Now, with FTL communication, you can typically set up a signal which is sent to yourself earlier in time. Thus, the event of receiving the signal in your past is within the light cone of the event of your sending the signal. This results in a signal sent backwards in time, and _all_ (sublight) observers will agree upon the fact that it went backwards in time. Note I'm talking about "sublight" observers. What about FTL observers? Don't even talk about FTL frames of reference. Some of you may have played around with space-time graphs and Lorentz transformations in the 2D case (1 dimension of space, 1 dimension of time), and gotten the impression that FTL frames of reference are pretty normal, even though they're "flipped" a bit. This is utterly wrong! FTL frames of reference in any higher dimension (we live in the 4D case) are exceedingly bizarre. Unless your familiar with the mathematics of topology, I'm afraid you probably can't comprehend how bizarre they are. Suffice it to say that there's no way to construct an atom, any sort of orbit, any sort of camera, or any sort of person in such a frame of reference. The topology is such that particles and light travel infinitely fast in some directions, at finite speeds in others, and _can't_ travel in other directions. If you _could_ exist in such a frame of reference, and were sitting in a room, you'd find that you could see some of the walls, but not others. If you got up and walked around your chair, you'd be able to see it from some angles, but not from others. An ftl frame of reference would be like this from the microscopic level to the global level. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 09:39 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1282" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "11:39:56" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "30" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA12393 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:39:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA12349 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:38:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA09136; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:39:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708261639.AA09136@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCB197.BD1E7840.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 25, 97 08:42:45 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1281 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:39:56 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Steve wrote: >> Sure they did. If you reappear at Tau Ceti in less time than it would >> take for light to go from Earth to Tau Ceti, then observers won't >> agree on whether you disappeared from Earth and reappeared at Tau Ceti, >> or disappeared from Tau Ceti and reappeared at Earth. >Huh? So what? It doesn't matter if you get there before the light does >as long as you can't get BACK before you left. Assuming that this mythical >drive is ONLY instantaneous or nearly so, you can't get back to the >original (rest) frame prior to leaving it. This is right, and Steve is confused. But you have to remember that "instantaneous" is a relative notion. Assuming relativity is valid and there are no special frames of reference, what you can do is thrust a little bit (sublight) before making your trip back. With your new frame of reference, "instantaneous" correlates different points in space-time. When you "instantaneously" travel back, you travel back instantly in your _new_ frame of reference. This will let you travel back to meet yourself before you left. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 09:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1190" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "09:45:21" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "22" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA14479 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:45:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA14400 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:45:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA03052 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:44:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA30369; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:45:21 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708261645.JAA30369@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <01BCB197.B8A30240.lparker@cacaphony.net> References: <01BCB197.B8A30240.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1189 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:45:21 -0700 L. Parker writes: > If you can move from here to there instantaneously, or nearly instantaneously, > is causality violated? If you go from here to Tau Ceti in 1 second of real > time, you don't arrive at Tau Ceti 11 years ago you arrive at t+1 sec. There > is no FTL communication that I can see and no causality violation. It's important to remember that the notions of "instantaneous" and "simultaneous" are completely frame-dependent. Simultaneous events, in relativistic terms, _must_ be separated by a spacelike interval, and since they are their time ordering is completely observer-dependent -- there is only one frame in which they can be claimed to be simultaneous. Now, Isaac has been chiding me for being somewhat confused about the notions of unique time ordering and causality, which I'll admit to having played too loosely with. Observer-dependent time ordering isn't the same as causality violation, and Isaac has explained that difference pretty well in recent examples. However, I do think it's accurate to say that if you claim to be able to link events separated by a spacelike interval, then you can construct causality violation under the right conditions. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 10:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2268" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "10:02:11" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "44" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA20461 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:02:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA20438 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:02:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA05640 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:01:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA30415; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:02:11 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708261702.KAA30415@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <9708261424.AA22865@bit.csc.lsu.edu> References: <199708230618.XAA17620@tzadkiel.efn.org> <9708261424.AA22865@bit.csc.lsu.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2267 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:02:11 -0700 Isaac Kuo writes: > Steve VanDevender wrote: > >You can't have another "rest" frame. If you're going to declare a > >particular frame to be the "rest" frame, you need to work the problem > >consistently with reference to that. > > >The point, which you now seem to understand better, is that if events > >are connected by a spacelike (FTL) worldline, then not all observers > >agree on their time ordering, as opposed to the case of events connected > >by timelike or lightlike worldlines where all observers do agree on a > >time ordering. I'm not sure what you mean by "the event reversal > >happens in all frames". For any spacelike relation of events there are > >always some observers who see one time ordering and some who see the > >other time ordering. > > Absolutely wrong. Any string of events where any pair of events is > within the light cones of each other will have a time ordering which > _all_ (sublight) observers will agree upon. In particular, the time > ordering of events happenning to any sublight moving entity will be > unambiguous. > > Now, with FTL communication, you can typically set up a signal which > is sent to yourself earlier in time. Thus, the event of receiving > the signal in your past is within the light cone of the event of > your sending the signal. This results in a signal sent backwards > in time, and _all_ (sublight) observers will agree upon the fact > that it went backwards in time. This does somewhat clarify the situation for me. However, I was really trying to make the point that FTL travel implies ambiguity of time ordering for the FTL-connected events, and that ambiguity of time ordering can then be used to produce causality paradoxes, although by itself ambiguity of time ordering is not violation of causality. Your clarification that being able to produce FTL-connected events allows one to produce observer-independent paradoxes is important and a more subtle issue than I had thought of. > Note I'm talking about "sublight" observers. What about FTL observers? > Don't even talk about FTL frames of reference. This is another excellent point, and I'm at least familiar enough with the mathematics to have an idea why FTL frames of reference are problematic. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 10:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2935" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "08:27:51" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "54" "starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA22126 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:08:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA22110 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:08:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id IAA15355; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 08:27:50 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id IAA28336; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 08:27:51 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708261527.IAA28336@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2934 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 08:27:51 -0700 Lee writes: >Does anyone know of any arguments that would tend to prove or disprove >the case for paradoxes? I don't mean FTL in particular, just time travel >paradoxes. Ooh-- the philosophy of time travel. I've run across three possibilities: A) All future time travel is ALREADY taken into account in our present, and is therefore self-consistent. The first Terminator movie is the example that comes to mind; the Terminator comes back in time, but instead of changing the future, he actually helps create the future from which he comes from. In this scenario, there has to be something preventing you from killing your grandfather, or the time-travel won't be self-consistent. This "something" is a little philisophically shaky. Another shaky thing about A) is that it makes the universe much more non-deterministic than it already is. Under this scenario, my future self could appear in front of me, and teach me how to build a time machine so I could go back and tell myself how to build a time machine. All completely consistent, but it's also completely consistent if I never do such a thing. How can the universe decide which consistent reality to make if both are equally acceptable? Tough questions. B) The second possibility is the alternate reality, where by going back in time the universe branches off into a "new" version of what's happening. This isn't quite as philisophically unweidly as A), but it does have some problems. (Strangely enough, this is the version of time-travel presented in the second Terminator movie, where they DO actually change the future) This B) scenario splits into two futher possibilities: either the time-travel CREATES the alternate universe, or else the alternate universes already exist, and you are merely travelling between them. The latter option has many more philisophical dilemmas than the first, but neither one particularly makes sense to me. But at least in this case, you CAN kill your grandfather; you don't need to invent some physical mechanism to keep you from doing whatever you want. C) The third, and most philisophically pleasing possibility has been hitting the bookstands in the last few years, in SF like "Pastwatch" by Orson Scott Card and "Einstein's Bridge" by John Cramer. In this, by travelling backwards in time you destroy the entire universe that exists between the time you leave and the time you arrive, and start creating a new one. You can have knowledge of the destroyed part of the universe, and use it to help build the new universe, but there are no "restrictions" on what you can do, and there are no alternate universes to deal with. Personally, I stil have a probelm with even this version of time-travel, mainly because I don't think time is the linear progression that we experience; I think the fundamental nature of time is very different from our perception of it. There you have it. Anyone for an option D)? Ken From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 10:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2032" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "10:23:34" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "44" "starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA28688 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:23:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA28671 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:23:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA08568 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:22:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA30470; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:23:34 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708261723.KAA30470@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199708261527.IAA28336@watt> References: <199708261527.IAA28336@watt> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 2031 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:23:34 -0700 Ken Wharton writes: > > Lee writes: > > >Does anyone know of any arguments that would tend to prove or disprove > >the case for paradoxes? I don't mean FTL in particular, just time travel > >paradoxes. > > Ooh-- the philosophy of time travel. I've run across three possibilities: > > A) All future time travel is ALREADY taken into account in our present, > > B) The second possibility is the alternate reality, where by going back in > time the universe branches off into a "new" version of what's happening. > > C) The third, and most philisophically pleasing possibility has been hitting > the bookstands in the last few years, in SF like "Pastwatch" by Orson Scott > Card and "Einstein's Bridge" by John Cramer. > > There you have it. Anyone for an option D)? One thing you have to deal with in all of these possibilities is that time travel, as usually conceived, produces local problems with conservation of mass. If you can actually go back in time and meet yourself, then there's one more you worth of mass in the universe for some amount of time. Talking about somehow rewinding the worldlines of all your atoms to prevent this is also problematic. Short trips back in time would involve meeting a heavily discombobulated self (missing most of its atoms) as well as a lot of other partially discombobulated plants and animals (you had to eat, after all :-). So the only way to travel with any hope of safety is to travel way back in time so that you minimize the damage to innocent organisms who only miss a few atoms here or there. If you really can send mass back in time without affecting the mass that was already there, then you could conceivably do all sorts of horrible things, like send enough mass back to produce a very, very closed universe that collapses before the future from which you sent back the extra mass. Before Isaac starts whacking me again I'll explicitly disclaim that I don't know enough general relativity to even begin evaluating this concept for plausibility. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 10:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3020" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "12:47:28" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "65" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea and paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA06347 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:46:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA06329 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:46:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA16633; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:47:29 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708261747.AA16633@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: from "Timothy van der Linden" at Aug 25, 97 06:45:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3019 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea and paradox Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:47:28 -0500 (CDT) Timothy van der Linden wrote: >Lee and Kevin, >I'm not so much bothered whether timetravel is possible and whether or not >paradoxes are a fact. >I'm only interested in what happens using current theories. Kevin's speculations about random heart attacks and such may sound way out, but they don't entirely fall outside the realm of current theories. Current theories view all the stuff in the universe to have a form of both a wave and a particle--a "wave-particle". We _know_ that particles have wave-like properties because even electrons can form interference patterns. Viewing photons and electrons and other particles as particles alone has been shown to be insufficient to explain their behavior. In particular, an interference pattern results in a two-slit interference generator even when the lamp is dimmed so low that only one electron at a time is emitted. If they really were particles, how could an interference pattern result? OTOH, if you set up a detector which determines which slit the electron entered, the interference pattern disappears and you get particle-like behavior with two bright spots behind the two slits. The speculation is that so long as the effects of a wave-particle are small, it behaves like a wave--as if it were going in every possible direction rather than picking one randomly, but once the effect becomes large enough, the wave collapses into one of the possibilities picked randomly. In the interference pattern example, this collapse occurs either when you look at the photographic plate or when you turn on the electron detector. In the former case, you can't tell which slit any of the electrons passed through, so an interference pattern as if they "passed through both" results. In the latter case, you can tell which slit they went through, so no interference pattern results. The speculation about waveforms collapsing, however, is in a certain sense just a speculation. It might be that waveform collapse _never_ occurs. In that case, the "many worlds" model of the universe long employed in fiction where the universe splits apart like a branching tree every time a random choice is made is accurate--except that it's an infinite continuum of splitting apart and nearby "branches" actually have an effect on each other (in the form of interference patterns). If you had a closed causality loop (due to time travel), then any time paradox would interfere with itself out of the realm of possibility. On the one hand, this does handle time travel paradoxes. On the other hand, it implies that the nature of the universe and its behavior is much more bizarre than we're accustomed to. By symmetry, what applies to "time travelling" FTL would apply to "normal" FTL trips as well. It'd be something like using the Infinite Improbability Drive, except much riskier. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 10:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2327" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "12:59:59" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "54" "Re: starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA10684 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:59:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA10665 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:58:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA18060; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:59:59 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708261759.AA18060@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708261527.IAA28336@watt> from "Ken Wharton" at Aug 26, 97 08:27:51 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2326 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:59:59 -0500 (CDT) Ken Wharton wrote: >Lee writes: >>Does anyone know of any arguments that would tend to prove or disprove >>the case for paradoxes? I don't mean FTL in particular, just time travel >>paradoxes. >Ooh-- the philosophy of time travel. I've run across three possibilities: >A) All future time travel is ALREADY taken into account in our present, >and is therefore self-consistent. This possibility is more problematic than it first appears, but according to current theory, it is possible due to the dual nature of wave-particles. It's a lot more like the "many worlds" scenario than you'd think. >B) The second possibility is the alternate reality, where by going back in >time the universe branches off into a "new" version of what's happening. >This isn't quite as philisophically unweidly as A), but it does have some >problems. This possibility is rather easy to grasp, but the problem with it is that by symmetry, every time you travel FTL, you are travelling into a "new" universe. What happenned to the old universe? Does it continue, with you winked out of existence? Or does it cease to be and you've murdered everyone you ever cared about? >... But at least in this case, you CAN kill your grandfather; >you don't need to invent some physical mechanism to keep you from doing >whatever you want. No you can't. You can't kill _your_ grandfather. You can only kill someone a lot like your grandfather who's an inhabitant of this new (?) universe. >C) The third, and most philisophically pleasing possibility has been hitting >the bookstands in the last few years, in SF like "Pastwatch" by Orson Scott >Card and "Einstein's Bridge" by John Cramer. In this, by travelling backwards >in time you destroy the entire universe that exists between the time you >leave and the time you arrive, and start creating a new one. This isn't time travel at all, any more than perfectly reconstructing a destroyed building. It's the same principle, but applied on a much larger and intricate scale. This is actually identical to the previous possibility, except that it specifies precisely what happenned to the old universe. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 12:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1020" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "12:51:03" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "22" "starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA23250 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:51:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA23226 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:51:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA19386; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:51:03 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA00266; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:51:03 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708261951.MAA00266@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1019 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:51:03 -0700 Clarification: When I presented those three time travel possibilities, the difference I meant to specify between B) and C) was that in B) the universe you leave continues to exist, while in C) it is destroyed. In C) I did not mean that the universe would then proceed identically the second time around; whoever travels back in time can survive and change things around as reality unfolds again. As for the infinite-universe idea, there are some very good philisophical reasons why it's very improbable. After all, people we know behave in predicable ways some of the time. Why would this be if we're in one of many universes? Every past decision made by anyone would be random; there would be no pattern to human behavior. It's a strong argument against the many-worlds idea. Finally, I agree with Issac that there is a link between quantum mechanics and time travel. But I currently think that it is not quantum that allows reverse-causality, but rather reverse-causality that creates quantum effects. Ken From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 14:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["839" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "14:59:58" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "22" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA26870 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:17:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA26822 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:17:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p36.gnt.com [204.49.68.241]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA13792 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:33 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:31 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB23B.8E2168A0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 20 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 838 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:59:58 -0500 Isaac, > But you have to remember that "instantaneous" is a relative notion. > Assuming relativity is valid and there are no special frames of > reference, what you can do is thrust a little bit (sublight) > before making your trip back. > > With your new frame of reference, "instantaneous" correlates > different points in space-time. When you "instantaneously" > travel back, you travel back instantly in your _new_ frame of > reference. This will let you travel back to meet yourself > before you left. Ahh, there is the point though, it lies in the concept of simultaneity, which really depends on whether space-time is Minkowskian or Galiliean doesn't it? Despite the lack of proof for or against either one, I prefer Galilean because a) time is absolute and b) I can understand it without getting a headache... Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 14:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1173" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "15:19:01" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "30" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA26918 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:17:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA26871 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:17:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p36.gnt.com [204.49.68.241]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA13804 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:37 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:35 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB23B.90209400.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 28 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1172 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:19:01 -0500 Steve, > Now, Isaac has been chiding me for being somewhat confused about the > notions of unique time ordering and causality, which I'll admit to > having played too loosely with. Observer-dependent time ordering isn't > the same as causality violation, and Isaac has explained that difference > pretty well in recent examples. However, I do think it's accurate to > say that if you claim to be able to link events separated by a spacelike > interval, then you can construct causality violation under the right > conditions. I was going to try to rephrase the question yet again, but I confused myself! Umm, by any chance does time have a negative value under FTL? That seems to be what is happening. If it is strictly a product of frame of reference I don't get it. Definitions of instantaneous vs. simultaneous aside, unless time can assume a negative value, I don't see how you can get back before you left even with FTL. For that matter, something someone said about photons travelling at infinite speed which totally confused me comes back to mind, something about NOW...never mind, I can't stand relativity, probably why I am only an engineer. Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 14:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["201" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "15:26:17" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "9" "RE: starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA26950 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:17:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA26894 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:17:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p36.gnt.com [204.49.68.241]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA13819 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:41 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:38 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB23B.9259BB20.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 7 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 200 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:26:17 -0500 Steve, Before Isaac starts whacking you...what an interesting idea. I've never even heard that objection before. Did you come up with it? Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "time bomb". Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 14:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["27141" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "16:13:59" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "557" "starship-design: Fwd: The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle ?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA27146 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:18:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA27069 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:18:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p36.gnt.com [204.49.68.241]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA13831 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:55 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:17:42 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB23B.947A7840.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 555 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 27140 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Fwd: The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle ? Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:13:59 -0500 My apologies to those of you whose editors/readers don't support word wrap. Mine does by default and the following copy of the original document did also. It is too long to reformat by hand. Other than that, it should make interesting reading for everybody in the group. The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle ? A physicist's view on an old controversy Last update 16th June '97 by Laro Schatzer (comments and criticism welcome) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Easy" Treatise Contemporary physics states that no object should be able to travel faster than the speed of light c = 299'792'458 metres per second.   Although the value of c appears enormous when compared with conventional traveling speeds, it suggests a limit which renders a practical realization of interstellar travel improbable. Whereas another planet in our solar system is reachable within minutes or at least hours at the speed of light, a journey to the nearest star system Alpha Centauri would already demand a traveling time of several years. Surely, the question remains: Are faster-than-light speeds possible? At the present time most scientists believe that the correct answer should be "no". However, it has to be emphasized that there is no definite proof for this claim. Actually, whether superluminal speeds are possible in principle depends on the real structure of the space-time continuum. Basically, one can distinguish two distinct notions of space-time in physics, which - according to present-day knowledge - both represent a valid possibility: .Galilean Space-Time (GST) .Minkowski Space-Time (MST) Whereas Galilean space-time allows the realization of faster-than-light speeds, at least in principle, Minkowski space-time does not. What is the reason for this difference ? The key point is the different conception of global time, ie. what one accepts as a physical definition of simultaneity. Actually, what do we mean when we say two separated events to be simultaneous? What we need is a clear physical notion of past, present and future. It is important to note that without a definition of global time the physical quantity speed (and thus light-speed) has no definite meaning anyway. Why? Consider an example: Imagine a train moving from point A to point B. Its speed v is given by The start time t(A,start) and the finish time t(B,finish) are read off from two distant clocks. One is located at point A and the other one at point B. Now, the difference of the two times in the denominator t(B,finish) - t(A,start) is an indefinite expression, unless there is a rule how to synchronize both clocks, because clock B ignores the "current" time at clock A at first. In fact, the decision in favour of a particular synchronization rule is pure convention, because it seems impossible to send an "instantenous" (infinitely fast) message from A to B like "initialize the clocks now!". Thus, the actual quantity of speed is conventional too, depending on the particular choice of the simultaneity condition. The question concerning global time is also important in the context of different reference frames. What is a reference frame? A reference frame (let us label it R from nowon) is simply a coordinate system of an observer. (For instance, let us imagine a physicist experimenting in his laboratory.) The observer can attach to all physical events coordinates, ie. space coordinates x, y, z (where?) and a time coordinate t (when?). Another observer in his personal reference frame R' (let us imagine another physicist sitting in a train moving with constant velocity v with respect to R) attaches to all physical events another (not necessarily equal) set of coordinates x', y', z' and t'. While two events may appear simultaneous in reference frame R (happening at equal time t), does this still hold in reference frame R'? And while the physical laws assume a particular form in frame R, do we obtain the same formulas in frame R' also? The answer is given by a theory which relates the new coordinates x', y', z', t' to the old ones x, y, z, t. Essentially, this is what the problem of relativity is all about. Galilean Space-Time In Galilean Space-Time the physical existence of an absolute time is assumed. The pioneer of physics Isaac Newton defined it in the following way [1]: "Absolute, true and mathematical time, in itself, and from its own nature, flows equally, without relation to any thing external; and by other name called Duration. Relative, apparent, and vulgar time, is some sensible and external measure of duration by motion, whether accurate or unequable, which is commonly used instead of true time; as an hour, a day, a month, a year. It may be, that there is no equable motion, whereby time may be accurately measured. All motions may be accelerated and retarded, but the flowing of absolute time is liable to no change." Because of this absolute time the notion of past, present and future is the same in all reference frames. If two events are simultaneous in one particular reference frame, this means that they are simultaneous in all reference frames. Thus, there is a unique separation between past and future events - the line of present in the space-time diagram (see below). Within Galilean Space-Time, faster-than-light speeds are possible in principle. However, electromagnetical waves are limited not to exceed the speed of light c. The latter is only a constant in the absolute space-time frame, which is also called the Newtonian rest frame. There has been a variety of theories to describe electromagnetical waves (light) as excitations of some medium, quite in analogy to sonic waves which propagate in the medium air. This hypothetical medium was called the ether and it was supposed to be in rest in the absolute space-time frame. That is why this frame is also called ether frame sometimes. Since the establishment of the theory of special relativity it has become extremely unpopular among scientists to speak about an "ether". However, we know today that electromagnetical waves are indeed excitations of some "medium". However, this medium is not a solid or a liquid in the classical sense, but it is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum field theoretists found the name vacuum for it. Some people interprete the vacuum as space-time itself, but this does not cover the fact that its true nature still remains a mystery. Anyhow, the term quantum ether might be used to indicate a possible modern synthesis of both concepts. Minkowski Space-Time Minkowski Space-Time does not know any absolute time. It was Albert Einstein who gave it a physical definition of simultaneity. Especially, because all experimental tests to determine the motion of an observer relative to some absolute space-time frame had failed, he decided to abandon the notion of absolute time at all. In his famous theory of relativity he postulated two principles which should hold for all physics: 1) All physical laws appear according to the same laws in all reference frames. 2) The speed of light is constant in all reference frames. While the first postulate seems well established by observation and experiments, the second one is simply an assumption. It implies, in contrast to Galilean Space-Time, that simultaneity is not a true absolute physical quality, but a relative one, depending on the motion of the actual observer. (Again, the existence of absolute time could not be proved by experiments, but the theory of special relativity does not disprove it either.) Now, how does the theory of relativity compare the time of two events at distinct locations? How can clocks be synchronized at different places? The answer Einstein gave, which is totally equivalent to his second postulate, is the following: Set up a reference frame R. Put time measuring devices (clocks) at two locations. Let's label the clocks 1 and 2. To synchronize them place a mirror at clock 2 and emit a light signal from clock 1 at space-time point A to clock 2. The light signal arrives at clock 2 at space-time point B, is reflected in the opposite direction and arrives at clock 1 at space-time point C. As the speed of light is per definition constant and the light signal travels the same distance in both directions, the instant t(B) when the signal is reflected equals exactly t(P), which is in the mean-time of A and C. Or, more formally, t(B) = t(P) = (t(A)+t(C))/2. With this definition of simulaneity, simultaneous events in one particular reference frame need not to be simultaneous in another frame. This can be checked by following the same procedure in a frame R' where all clocks are moving with relative speed v with respect to R. Remark: For a better understanding of these reflections it is very fruitful to study a geometrical representation of space-time, the so-called space-time diagram (see below). Such a diagram is a reduced model of space and time from four to two dimensions. Instead of three space x, y, z and one time coordinate t, one uses only one space and a time coordinate, x and t, respectively. (It is much more easier to draw and think in two dimensions than in four dimensions.) For reasons of convenience the units are chosen such that the speed of light equals unity c=1. Hence, a light ray is described by x=+t or x=-t, appearing as a line at 45° or 135° in the (x,t)-plane, respectively. The reader is strongly encouraged to reconstruct the important ideas by studying the space-time diagram.. Remember that the x-axis is the line of simultaneity (ie. with constant time t=0), and that the t-axis is the line of constant position (x=0). Now, as Newtonian time and thus the absolute space-time frame have disap peared in the theory of special relativity, all reference frames are equivalent. This implies that two superluminally separated events in space-time are instantenous in a particular reference frame. Present is no more a simple line in the space-time diagram, but equals the whole region of faster-than-light processes. As there is no Newtonian rest frame anymore which separates past and future superluminal events, faster-than-light motion would imply the possibility of time travel. Therefore, because this leads to the well known severe paradoxes of time travel, the theory of special relativity excludes faster-than-light speeds a priori. Summary The question whether the speed of light is a true physical limit has no definite answer yet. It depends on the real structure of space-time. If there is an absolute time preserving causality (by preventing time-travel paradoxes), then faster-than-light speeds - and even faster-than-light t ravel - are possible, at least in principle. On the other hand, if superluminal processes are to be discovered, then absolute time will probably have to be reintroduced in physics. Although the theory of special relativity states against absolute time and superluminal phenomena, it does it not by proof, but only by assumption. Are there indications that absolute time and faster-than-light processes exist ? The opinion of the author is "yes" ! It is the task of the next section to present some physical evidence. Physical Treatise For the description of physical phenomena it is sufficient to use only the first of Einstein's postulates [2]. Without loss of generality we may choose a reference frame R (with coordinates x, y, z, t) where the speed of light c is constant in all directions. The general coordinate transformation from this particular reference frame R to a general one R' (primed coordinates) reads where the relative speed v of R' with respect to R is chosen to be parallel to the x-axis. The transformation properly expresses the apparent contraction of moving rods (Lorentz contraction) and the slowing of moving clocks (time dilation). The function S(x') determines the notion of simultaneity in frame R'. Generally, this may be an arbitrary function, but it is convenient to impose S(0) = 0 for that the clocks of the two reference frames R and R' become synchronized at the origin (x,t) = (0,0) = (x',t'). Furthermore, in order to avoid acceleratory effects, one usually imposes that S(x') is linear in x', ie. S(x') = s x'. Minkowski Space-Time It can be shown that Einstein's second postulate is equivalent to setting S(x') = - v/c^2 x', so that we obtain the well known Lorentz transformations with the speed of light c' = dr'/dt'(r=ct) = c constant in all frames. Thus, from the viewpoint of relativity, all reference frames are completely equivalent. The first postulate only ensures that physical phenomena have (locally) the same appearance in all reference frames, in the sense that one obtains the same result for all measurable quantities, which are but mean round-trip quantities (eg. the mean two-way speed of light). The second postulate states that there is no preferred reference frame and thus the expression of the global physical laws in mathematical formulas appears equally in all reference frames. The space-time coordinates (local Lorentz coordinates) are defined in such a way that the one-way speed of light is constant. The success of the theory of relativity can be understood from the fact that the possibility to formulate all physical laws covariantly, ie. in a relativistically invariant manner, appears most tempting. One cannot deny that the involved mathematics is highly attractive from an esthetical point of view. For more information on special relativity and the principle of covariance one may consult eg. [3], [4]. Galilean Space-Time Another possibility is to set S(x') = 0. The reference frame R now plays a special role. It can be interpreted as the Newtonian frame of absolute time and space. The coordinate transformation looks very much like the old Galilean transformation x' = x - vt, t' = t, except that there appear additional time dilation and length contraction factors. This expresses the well known Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction hypothesis. Although the one-way speed of light is not constant within this framework, the mean-speed c of a round-trip is again constant [3], as this would require the possibility of synchronizing clocks by some other means than finite-speed signals. Thus, some "experimental proof" of the constancy of the one-way speed of light has not been given so far. Remark: It has to be emphasized that H. A. Lorentz version of the ether theory (which is set in such a Newtonian framework), ie. Lorentz relativity, is still a valid alternative to special relativity. It suffices to introduce the hypothesis that moving particles are contracted by some interaction with the ether (Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction), and that internal time is dilated by the same factor. Some physical justification was given by Lorentz in a paper (1904), where he showed how the physical length contraction can be explained by electro-magnetical effects. Towards a Decision Which conception of space-time structure is correct ? Obviously, the covariant framework is the most attractive one to describe matter in electromagnetical and gravitational fields. However, it is still possible that there exists an underlying absolute time preserving causality for superluminal phenomena. The theory of relativity offers no adequate framework for superluminal processes, a Galilean theory does. As is pointed out in the following part, several arguments indicate the non-generality of covariance and the existence of superluminal processes. The resurrection of absolute time is therefore possible, if not even necessary. The Non-Generality of Covariance Besides the principle of relativity, quantum mechanics is a cornerstone of modern physics. No physical theory evades relativity and quantum mechanics, but do these cornerstones actually fit together? Let us repeat what is the time evolution of a physical state |s> in quantum mechanics (according to the Copenhagen interpretation). There are two steps: 1) The unitary time evolution |s(t)> = U(t) |s(0)> 2) The reduction of the state |s(t)> into an eigenstate of an observable P |s(t)> in case of measurement by an observer, where P is a projection operator. This is the famous "collapse of the wavefunction". The unitary time evolution is represented covariantly in a natural way, for instance, it leads to the Klein-Gordon or Dirac equation in the case of a relativistic particle. On the other hand - and what is less well known - there exists no covariant representation of the state reduction postulate [5]. If a physical reality is attached to the wave function, then the theory of relativity fails bitterly. In this context also belong EPR-like effects [6], which imply miraculous non-local (superluminal) correlations of measured quantities. Albert Einstein and other physicists could not believe in the validity of quantum mechanics because of such effects, which are apparently in conflict with the theory of relativity. One example is the violation of the Bell inequalities [7], which has been confirmed experimentally [8]. Thus, quantum mechanics has proven to be correct (see [9] for an overview). Although non-local effects are a constituent of quantum mechanics, most physicists still believe in the validity of special relativity, because EPR-like effects cannot be used to transmit information at superluminal speeds. Yet, EPR-correlations remain a mystery if special relativity and local realism are assumed to be valid. While time and space are somehow "on equal rights" in the Lorentz transformations, time in quantum mechanics is completely different to space. In the field equations time appears as an exterior parameter only, whereas the position of a particle is described by some operator (a hermitian operator). But it is impossible to construct a valid time operator, and there are no time eigenstates. Thus, there exists no covariant 4-position operator in quantum mechanics. This is one of the main reasons why it has not yet been possible to construct a reasonable quantum field theory of gravitation. Thus, the usual theory of relativity and quantum mechanics appear to be incompatible. Some Arguments in Favour of Absolute Time One possible solution to the problem of time in quantum mechanics (and thus in quantum gravity) would be the reintroduction of a background Newtonian time. There are serious attempts to quantize gravitation in such a framework, eg. Post-Relativistic Gravity. This solution is also considered in more advanced research programs, eg. Canonical Quantum Gravity (see section "Further reading"). Moreover, there are some heuristic arguments which might further motivate the reintroduction of absolute time: First, if there is a physical absolute time, then the number of fundamental constants reduces by one (the speed of light is not a constant any longer). This leads to a simplification and a new interpretation of the physical quantities and constants [2]. Second, it is well known that one can define a universal time, which appears in cosmological models. For instance, general relativity leads us to the Robertson-Walker metric [10], which describes the long-range structure of our universe: Here, the time parameter t defines an universal time, the cosmological time. If there was an absolute beginning (with the big bang), it can be identified with the age of the universe. Anyhow, adopting absolute time would give it a further physical meaning. And, of course, there is a mea surable preferred reference frame, which can be determined, for instance, from the absolute motion towards the uniform cosmic background radiation. Interestingly, recent investigations of electromagnetic radiation propagating over cosmological distances seem to reveal a true anisotropy in the structure of our universe, suggesting that the speed of light might be not a true constant, but dependent on polarization. These results might possibly represent a further indication in favour of the existence of an absolute reference frame [11]. Summary What is the true space-time structure ? Both Galilean space-time and Minkowski space-time have appeared to be valid physical concepts. However, the absolute generality of relativistic invariance (covariance) is set into doubt by the following arguments: .The quantum mechanical state evolution has no covariant representation. .EPR-like effects seem to indicate non-local (superluminal) processes. .It is impossible to construct a valid time observable, there exists no relativistic 4-position operator. .From a cosmological perspective the existence of a preferred reference frame appears to be natural. It has been argued that a solution to these incompatibilities is the reintroduction of absolute time to physics. Further arguments in favour of the existence of a Newtonian absolute time have been given. Thus, the concept of Galilean Space-Time might be the correct one after all. Incidentally, there are active research groups trying to experimentally detect the existence of a preferred reference frame in this context. Conclusion: If our universe has a Newtonian background, ie. if there is an absolute time in the space-time continuum, then there is no threat on causality by superluminal processes, because time travel and its paradoxes are excluded a priori. And thus, within this framework, faster-than-light travel is possible, at least in principle. Remark: It may now come as a surprise to many physicists that even within the framework of general relativity faster-than-light speed is allowed, provided that the space-time metric of the universe is globally hyperbolic [12]. This condition simply implies that closed time-like paths in space-time (and thus time-travel) are not possible, therefore causality is again preserved. (Again, the time parameter can be interpreted as an absolute time of the universe.) However, in order to construct a propulsion mechanism for faster-than-light travel, exotic matter (with imaginary mass) would probably be needed in order to produce negative energy densities in space. Unfortunately, exotic matter is not known to exist, although negative energy densities have been shown to appear in quantum field theory. But, of course, such a hypothetical propulsion mechanism just provokes to be given the familiar name of the warp drive. References [1] I. Newton: "Mathematical Principles of natural philosophy", (London, Dawson, 1969) [2] J. P. Hsu, L. Hsu: "A physical theory based solely on the first postulate of relativity", Physics Letters A 196 (1994), pgs. 1-6; F. Selleri: "Theories equivalent to special relativity", in Frontiers of Fundamental Physics, edited by M. Barone and F. Selleri, (Plenum Press, New York, 1994) [3] H. Reichenbach: "The philosophy of space and time", (Dover, New York, 1958) [4] J. D. Jackson: "Classical electrodynamics", (Wiley, New York, 1975), chapter 11 [5] Y. Aharonov, D. Z. Albert: "Can we make sense of the measurement process in relativistic quantum mechanics?", Physical Review D 24 (1981), pgs. 359-370; A. Peres: "Relativistic Quantum Measurements", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 755 (1995) ("Fundamental Problems in Quantum Theory"), pgs. 445-450 [6] A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, N. Rosen: "Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?", Physical Review 47 (1935), pp. 777 [7] J. S. Bell: "On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox", Physics 1 (1964), No. 3, pp. 195 [8] A. Aspect et al.: "Experimental realization of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm gedankenexperiment: A new violation of Bell's inequalities", Physical Review Letters 49 (1982), No. 2, p. 91; "Experimental test of Bell's inequalities using time-varying analyzers", Physical Review Letters 49 (1982), No. 25, pp. 1804 [9] R. Y. Chiao, P. G. Kwiat, A. M. Steinberg: "Faster than light?", in Scientific American (1993), August [10] S. Weinberg: "Gravitation and cosmology", (Wiley, New York, 1972), chapter 14 [11] B. Nodland, J. P. Ralston: "Indication of Anisotropy in Electromagnetic Propagation over Cosmological Distances", Physical Review Letters 78 (1997), No. 16. 3043-3046; e-print:astro-ph/9704196; see also here [12] M. Alcubierre: "The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity". Classical and Quantum Gravity 11 (1994), pgs. L73-L77, see also here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Further Reading (Scientific Papers) .C. J. Isham: "Prima Facie Questions in Quantum Gravity": Relativity, Classical and Quantum, eds. J. Ehlers and H. Friedrich, Springer-Verlag, Berlin (1994), e-print:gr-qc/9310031 .G. K. Au: "The Quest for Quantum Gravity", e-print:gr-qc/9506001 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Related Pages on the Web Special Relativity: .Rob Salgado: "The Light Cone - An Illuminating Introduction to Relativity". .Alan Pendleton: "Was Einstein right?" offers another critical look at Einstein's theory of special relativity. The Ether Concept: .Amara Graps: "Ether: What is it?" .Albert Einstein: "Ether and the Theory of Relativity". It was only 11 years, from 1905 to 1916, that Albert Einstein did not believe in the existence of an ether. In 1920, some years after the publication of his theory of general relativity, he expressed his opinion in favour of an existing ether in a talk at the University of Leyden. Alternative Gravity Theories: .Yilmaz Theory of Gravity, a new gravity theory that seems to resolve the defects of general relativity and that appears to be closer to some kind of "ether" interpretation of the gravitational field. Grand Unified Theories: .Brian Greene: "Superstring Theory". Superstring theory appears to be a very promising attempt to unite all fundamental forces including gravity, but it is also not able to resolve the measurement problem. However, it resides on a fixed space-time background, and it does allow for the existence of a background time parameter. Cosmology: .Borge Nodland: "A Peek into the Crystal Ball of an Anisotropic Universe": Recent measurements on the propagation of radio waves over cosmological distances seem to indicate that our universe possesses a preferred direction in space. Interstellar Travel: ."Warp Drive When?": What NASA has to say about interstellar travel. .John G. Cramer: "Space Drives": A collection of articles published in Analog, amongst a well-done discussion of Miguel Alcubierre's paper on the warp drive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Go to home page. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 14:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["320" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "16:16:45" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "12" "starship-design: http://monet.physik.unibas.ch/~schatzer/space-time.html" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA27303 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:18:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA27280 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:18:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p36.gnt.com [204.49.68.241]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA13845 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:18:03 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:18:01 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB23B.A0018500.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 4 TEXT, 5 UUENCODE X-MS-Attachment: The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle .url 0 00-00-1980 00:00 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 319 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: http://monet.physik.unibas.ch/~schatzer/space-time.html Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:16:45 -0500 For those of you who want to see the graphics and equations here is the link: http://monet.physik.unibas.ch/~schatzer/space-time.html begin 600 The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle .url M6TEN=&5R;F5T4VAO7-I:RYU D;FEB87,N8V@O?G-C:&%T>F5R+W-P86-E+71I;64N:'1M; T* ` end From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 15:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3112" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "15:07:45" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "58" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA23352 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:08:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA23338 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:08:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA14634 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:06:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA31144; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:07:45 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708262207.PAA31144@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <01BCB23B.90209400.lparker@cacaphony.net> References: <01BCB23B.90209400.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 3111 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:07:45 -0700 L. Parker writes: > Steve, > > > Now, Isaac has been chiding me for being somewhat confused about the > > notions of unique time ordering and causality, which I'll admit to > > having played too loosely with. Observer-dependent time ordering isn't > > the same as causality violation, and Isaac has explained that difference > > pretty well in recent examples. However, I do think it's accurate to > > say that if you claim to be able to link events separated by a spacelike > > interval, then you can construct causality violation under the right > > conditions. > Umm, by any chance does time have a negative value under FTL? That seems to > be what is happening. If it is strictly a product of frame of reference I > don't get it. First of all, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a negative time value. The only observer-independent notion of time in relativity is "proper time", i.e. the time that an object experiences itself. In at least one (probably oversimplified) analysis, FTL motion requires that the object experience _imaginary_ proper time. If an object is measured to move without acceleration for a time t through a displacement x, then the proper time experienced by the object (say read off a clock carried by it) will be sqrt(t^2 - x^2), and this proper time will be the same for all observers; all of the possible times and displacements that they observe will produce the same value of sqrt(t^2 - x^2). However, if the object moves FTL, the value of t^2 - x^2 will be negative, its experienced proper time will be an imaginary number, and we could probably argue for a very long time about what that might mean. > Definitions of instantaneous vs. simultaneous aside, unless time can assume > a negative value, I don't see how you can get back before you left even with > FTL. For that matter, something someone said about photons travelling at > infinite speed which totally confused me comes back to mind, something about > NOW...never mind, I can't stand relativity, probably why I am only an > engineer. Photons experience no proper time at all -- for them, t^2 - x^2 is zero, meaning that they always move through the same amount of time as space. So to a photon everything is simultaneous. This is, however, something of a degenerate case. For any FTL-moving object, there is one observer moving at a particular speed relative to the events in question who will see the object's motion as infinitely fast and the events as simultaneous. Consequently any FTL motion will look like infinite speed to someone. Does that help? :-) Again in an oversimplified nutshell, FTL can be used to create a causality loop if you send an FTL signal to an object moving fast enough to see your FTL signal as moving backwards in time, and then it sends another FTL signal back to you which you see as moving backwards in time. Consquently you receive a signal before the signal you sent that you claim caused the received signal. And if the signal you receive is the destruct code for the transmitter equipment, you can work on the headache from there. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 15:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["887" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "15:15:31" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "20" "RE: starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA27916 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:15:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA27890 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:15:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA15580 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:14:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA31167; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:15:31 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708262215.PAA31167@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <01BCB23B.9259BB20.lparker@cacaphony.net> References: <01BCB23B.9259BB20.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 886 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: Subject: RE: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:15:31 -0700 L. Parker writes: > Steve, > > Before Isaac starts whacking you...what an interesting idea. I've never even > heard that objection before. Did you come up with it? Gives a whole new meaning > to the phrase "time bomb". I'm sure that I've seen other people discuss the problem of time travel violating conservation of mass, so I won't claim it as my own idea. I don't know whether anyone else has come up with the idea of sending enough mass back in time to collapse the universe. The other fun thing with that is that, of course, the collapsed universe is heavier than the original. Hmm. This is definitely getting pretty far afield of designing realistic starships, although I think anything that helps people understand relativistic physics in a useful way will probably help the design process, as many of the interesting design problems are consequences of relativity. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 15:20 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["797" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "15:20:36" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "14" "starship-design: Fwd: The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle ?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA00328 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:20:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA00306 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:20:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA16346 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:19:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA31181; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:20:36 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708262220.PAA31181@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <01BCB23B.947A7840.lparker@cacaphony.net> References: <01BCB23B.947A7840.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 796 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: Subject: starship-design: Fwd: The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle ? Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:20:36 -0700 Isaac can probably debate against that paper better than I can. Giving up the notion of absolute time seems to be one of the hardest obstacles many people have to effectively understanding relativity and accepting its consequences. The bulk of sci.physics.relativity is kooks presenting Yet Another Theory Showing that Relativity is Wrong and Absolute Spacetime Exists, and people telling them why they're wrong, assuming the kooks have enough of a theory to even be worth criticizing (who was it that said "That's not right. That's not even wrong"?). I am somewhat intrigued by the notion that "concave" spacetime somehow allows one to get FTL without causality violation, despite the universe probably being "convex", but haven't seen enough details on the concept to really understand it. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 17:23 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5129" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "19:23:59" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "111" "Re: starship-design: Fwd: The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle ?" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA16187 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 17:23:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA16171 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 17:22:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA00169; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 19:23:59 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708270023.AA00169@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCB23B.947A7840.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 26, 97 04:13:59 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5128 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Fwd: The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle ? Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 19:23:59 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle ? >A physicist's view on an old controversy >by Laro Schatzer "Physicist"? Based on what he writes in this essay...maybe not. >In Galilean Space-Time the physical existence of an absolute time is >assumed. The pioneer of physics Isaac Newton defined it in the following >way [1]: "Galilean Space-Time"? There was indeed a physics model which Galileo developed based on his scientific experiments, but it erroneously included a factor which caused objects to follow the curve of the Earth's rotation. This unnecessary (and incorrect) extra factor was eliminated by Newton, who used his mathematics of calculus to really turn it into the first physics model. >Minkowski Space-Time >Minkowski Space-Time does not know any absolute time. It was Albert >Einstein who gave it a physical definition of simultaneity. Especially, >because all experimental tests to determine the motion of an observer >relative to some absolute space-time frame had failed, he decided to >abandon the notion of absolute time at all. In his famous theory of >relativity he postulated two principles which should hold for all physics: >1) All physical laws appear according to the same laws in all reference >frames. >2) The speed of light is constant in all reference frames. >While the first postulate seems well established by observation and >experiments, the second one is simply an assumption. I don't think any "physicist" who knew his stuff would call the second principle "simply an assumption". It is one of the most heavily tested and controversial phenomenon ever experimentally discovered and verified. Ever since the electromagnetic nature of light was revealed, all scientists believed light travelled at a constant speed along a medium (which fit the models and was experimentally verified), and simply assumed that if you were travelling w.r.t. this medium, the speed of light would be different in different directions (because of how classical mechanics and adding velocities works). The discovery that the speed of light was actually the same in every direction, no matter what, came as quite a shock, and since then it's been experimentally verified innumerable times and many theories to explain this phenomenon have been proposed and disproven. Einstein's theory of general relativity, by far the most elegant of those theories, is also the one which has stood the test of time and skeptical experimental verification. To say the constant speed of light is "simply an assumption" is almost insulting. >Remark: It has to be emphasized that H. A. Lorentz version of the ether >theory (which is set in such a Newtonian framework), ie. Lorentz >relativity, is still a valid alternative to special relativity. Remark: it has to be emphasized that Lorentz's version of the theory is mathematically identical to special relativity, it's just that he didn't realize the implications it had to simultanaity and apparent time the way Einstein did. There's a reason we still call it a Lorentz transformation. Remark: Special relativity is wrong. It's a special case of General relativity where space is flat. However, space is (in our immediate viscinity at least) slightly convex due to the effects of gravity. >Thus, there exists no >covariant 4-position operator in quantum mechanics. This is one of the main >reasons why it has not yet been possible to construct a reasonable quantum >field theory of gravitation. Thus, the usual theory of relativity and >quantum mechanics appear to be incompatible. This is indeed a serious limitation to our current understanding of physics, as mysterious to us as wave-particle duality was to physicists before quantum mechanics. The fact is that general relativity and quantum mechanics have both been experimentally verified to work for everything we've tested them against so far (and this includes skeptical experimentation). Our inability to link the two theoretically doesn't change that. We can't do it either with or without any "absolute time" yet, so it isn't any argument in favor of "absolute time". >[tenuous heuristic arguments in favor of "absolute time" snipped] Guys, beware of stuff you read, especially stuff drawing conclusions from "recent discoveries" that "seem to indicate" something or other. >Incidentally, there are active research groups trying to experimentally >detect the existence of a preferred reference frame in this context. Look at that "evidence". Active research has been trying to detect the existence of a preferred reference frame since the Michelson-Morley experiment showed the constant speed of light. At the time, _every_ scientist who performed such experiments believed there must be a special frame of reference, and some continue to believe it. None has ever been found. Maybe one will be found someday. But don't be on it. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 19:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["618" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "19:35:06" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "16" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA09686 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 19:07:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA09676 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 19:07:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p38.gnt.com [204.49.68.243]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA01724 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 21:07:18 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 21:07:15 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB264.078EBD00.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 14 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 617 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 19:35:06 -0500 Steve, > For any FTL-moving object, there is one observer moving at a particular > speed relative to the events in question who will see the object's > motion as infinitely fast and the events as simultaneous. Consequently > any FTL motion will look like infinite speed to someone. Does that > help? :-) Sorry, I learned logic in sixth grade, I didn't get physics until high school. I just can't quite see it. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't believe in violation of causality, period. Therefore, current understanding of physical laws as they relate to relativity and FTL MUST be flawed. Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 20:38 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["11358" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "23:37:44" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "238" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA29004 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:38:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA28993 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:38:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA15515; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:37:44 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970826233652_2048883354@emout13.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 11357 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:37:44 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/22/97 1:51:40 PM, you wrote: >I feel like I'm talking in circles, constantly having to repeat the same >things to the same responces. We already went over this at the start of >this pellet track discussion. I think the problem I'm having is a lot of your pellate track idea is self-contradictory, and by the time you mention some parts, I've forgotten others from previous posts. >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/19/97 11:21:57 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >>wrote: > >>>Do I have to repeat myself? > >>>The pellet shooters are installed on the fuel packets. > >>>The fuel packets are accelerated to relativistic velocities >>>with constant course corrections during the acceleration >>>run so that they arrive near the target system with an error of >>>10km or less. Neat trick for an automated probe. The way you phrased this is sounds like you stop in the star system. I'm assuming you actually mean fly through the star system? >>>They then shoot pellets along a track to intercept the starship's >>>ramscoop with the pellet shooter, which has a muzzle velocity of >>>around 1km/s (easily enough to make up for a 10km error in the >>>packet's position). > >>Oh. NO That wasn't clear from your descriptions. > >I did describe it precisely before. I only quote it again here >so hopefully I won't have to repeat it yet again. > >>True., that overcomes my comment. But then the fuel packets are useless. >> They have to fly as far, and about as fast as the ship. So you might as >>well just dock them and off load the fuel, or integrate them into the ship. >> Effectivly you have an exotice, fragmented, fuel/sail configuration. > >>How do you intend to slow the fuel launchers at the target star system? >> Unless they are going slowly, they couldn't launch to the ship without the >>ship haveing high speed impacts. > >Oh NO! Not this again! This is how it all started in the first place! > >1. The advantage over integrating the fuel in the ship is that you > can spread the launch of the fuel packets over a long period of > time. My example before was how a .5 cruising starship to Bernard's > Star could have the deceleration track fuel packet drones launched > over a period of 3 years (starting after the starship's acceleration > run--all resources prior to launch are devoted to the acceleration > run and its track). Not really. If the fuel launchers are to be able to fire the fuel into the following starship, they can't be to far ahead of it, or going at a radically different speed. They can't just drop the fuel in their wake, even assuming the following ship could follow in that exact track. The fuel would drift away over a period of time from interstellar effects, or be blasted out of the way from the fuel tankers drive beam or nav thrusters. (you did mention the tankers are in powered, course correcting, flight.) >2. There is no intention to slow the pellet launchers at the star > system. There never was, there never will be. Anything that > could have slowed down the pellet launchers would work just as > well for the starship. Then the pellats will have to be fired at the rear of the ship. For collection in rear scoops. An done befor the ship is passed by the tankers. >3. The pellets fired from the pellet launchers will indeed be moving > fast compared to the starship. > >4. There aren't any high speed physical impacts. Remember the whole > discussion of how the magnetic fields of the magscoop conservatively > accelerates the incoming plasma? Which was wrong, see below. >5. The high speed of the pellets is an inherent part of the ramjet, > in that it provides the energy to compress the pellet's plasma > to initiate fusion. If the tankers are launched after the main ship. They will have to be going faster than the ship to get to the starsystem before the ship gets there. But the ship can't scoop up fuel thats going faster then it. It might be able to catch the fuel fired at it from behind. But since the impact of the fuel on its catcher feilds would shove it forward. This would accelerate the ship, increasing fuel consuption. (Sorry, regardless of your fram of reference the fuel hitting from behind at high speed would exert a forward thrust on anything that interacts with it physically or magnetically. Can't be helped.) Also since the fuel lanchers are racing past it. They would have to launch the fuel up to months before it reaches the ship. I.E. from light months distence. So hiting the ship would be dificult. >6. There is an advantage to the ramjet over a normal rocket in that > its propellant requirements grow more gently than a rocket does, > when the desired delta-v is much greater than the Isp * gee. > >>>>No the energy would be released in the scoop system ahead of the ship. > >>>This is just fine. The energy is still in increased kinetic energy >>>of the particles, which are still funnelled along the magnetic lines >>>of the ramscoop. It will still be turned into extra forward thrust >>>when the magnetic nozzle directs those products rearward. > >>>You have to look at this in terms of the inertial frame of the >>>starship, because that is where the magnetic field of the ramjet >>>are conservative. > >>Exactly. Fuel impacts frount of ship. That thrust pushes backwards on the >>ship through the magnetic fields. Unless the later fields accelerate the >>fuel backward, you have a negative thrust. > >This is exactly what the magnetic nozzle does. But how can it do so >if it inputs no energy into the plasma, you ask? Because the ramscoop >didn't remove energy from the plasma in the first place. Magnetic >fields are conservative. > >Like I said, you have to look at in terms of the inertial frame of the >ship. If you don't, then it's a lot more complicated because of the >changing (moving) magnetic fields, which aren't conservative. > >A bit of plasma enters the viscinity of the starship in the "backwards" >direction with a certain speed V. That means it starts off with a >kinetic energy of 1/2 V*V*M (M is mass of the bit of plasma). > >Somewhere--it doesn't really matter where--the kinetic energy is >increased to some higher value due to fusion. This kinetic energy >will be 1/2 S*S*M, where S is a certain value greater than V. > >The bit of plasma will leave the viscinity of the starship with >kinetic energy of 1/2 S*S*M, because the only forces acting on >it are from the fixed magnetic field, which is conservative. >Thus, it will leave with a speed of S. The only question is, >in what direction? Assuming none of the fusion products escape >out the front (because their speed overcame their incoming ramming >speed), they are moving almost straight backwards, because of the >magnetic nozzle. > >So afterward, we have a bit of plasma which is moving backward >with velocity S, greater than the initial speed V. That means >that the momentum of the bit of plasma has changed in the >backward direction. > >But wait--there's conservation of momentum! In a closed system >(the ship + the pellet), there can't be any overall change in >momentum. We know the pellet has a change in momentum in >the backward direction. That means _something_ has a change >in momentum in the forward direction. The only other thing >out there is the ship. > >Therefore, there is a forward change in momentum in the ship. Your mising the fact that this doesn't happen at once. Collecting the fuel as you run over it subjects the scoop system to a serious reward thrust as the scoop tries to diver the fuel into the engine. This load must be supported by the scoop fields. If the fuel is successfully funneled into the engine. The engine can then try to fues it before it blast out the rear of the ship. After it fuses. The drive system has to tap out enough forward momentum to shove the ship against the scoop with enough force to accelerate against the drag. This may not be possible. If the fuel fuses. The plasma products are probably blasting outward at random directions at about 20,000,000 meters per secound (rough number off top of sleepy head). Note that at some points the fuel stream and ship will have 150,000,000 mps relative velocities. So assuming the fuel isn't changed to ship speeds before fusion. The fuel will still be blasting backwards relative to the ship. Their will be a big delta v change in the fuel. But unless you have some tricky interaction of fusion plasma and ship I don't know about. Thats not going to effect the ship much, except for the heavy drag from the forward scoop. >>>Anyway, I must repeat that I really doubt the flash heating alone >>>could initiate fusion. As I said before, there is no compression. >>>It's not like the front part of the pellet suddenly hits a brick >>>wall of magnetic field while the rear part of the pellet slams >>>into it--only the differential between the strength of the magnetic >>>field encountered by the front part and the rear part is significant, >>>and this is minimized by having a small pellet. > >>I was assuming a slow speed fuel track ahead of the ship. > >So was I, and you are right in that immense accelerations are >applied to the pellet. However, these accelerations are applied >evenly to the pellet, leaving just the "tidal force" of the magnetic >field gradient to compress/expand the pellet. It's like how the >force of gravity acts on an object in free fall. But if the fuel tankers and ship are moving at such high relative velocities, you can't launch the fuel to a speed near to the ships speed. I.E. no slow fuel track. No slow acceleration on the fuel by the scoop track. Also since the closing velocity is up to .5 C, and the scoop fields arn't thousands of kilometers deep, it is going to be like hitting a magnetic wall. >>The high G thrust >>on the pellats needed to accelerate slow fuel, up to relatavistic speeds ship >>speeds. Obviousl the ship can't get boost out of fuel blasting threw the >>engines in a 1/100,000th of a secound. You'ld be hard pressed to get a >>fusion reaction that fast. > >No, because the faster the ramscoop goes, the faster it compresses >the pellets. The implosion speed is proportional to the speed of >the incoming pellets, so the fusion cross section is proportionately >increased, so the rate of the reaction is proportionately increased. > >The yeilds would be fantastic--if we could inject solid fuel pellets >at relativistic speeds on the ground into a reactor, we'd get awesome >fusion yeilds. Unfortunately, that requires getting those solid >fuel pellets to relativistic speeds in the first place, something >which is probably impossible in practice, and it also requires an >efficient way to tap energy from the resulting reaction (otherwise, >you lose a good fraction of the energy used to accelerate the >pellet in the first place). It takes power to compress those pellets that fast in the magnetic scoop. Also fusion reactions don't happen instently. Even after the particals are fused, even if every partical in the fuel stream is shoved together instently, it takes a finite time for the particals to fuse, shuffel neclear particals, and then throw the resulting fussion particals outward. By then these particals could be well past the ship. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 20:38 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["270" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "23:37:54" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "16" "Re: starship-design: Unknown" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA29029 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:38:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA29015 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:38:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA09118; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:37:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970826233656_481498138@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 269 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Unknown Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:37:54 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/22/97 8:19:07 PM, you wrote: >Did anyone else get a bunch of blank messages from "unknown" or was I the only >one? > >Lee Same here I'm also geting messages C/O'd from the starship list, but reply to doesn't list starship as an address. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 20:38 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5743" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "23:38:00" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "130" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA29090 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:38:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout05.mail.aol.com (emout05.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.96]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA29048 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:38:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout05.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA02374; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:38:00 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970826233716_608555162@emout05.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5742 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:38:00 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/23/97 12:37:20 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/19/97 11:04:14 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >>wrote: >>>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>>In a message dated 8/18/97 9:17:14 AM, you wrote: >>>>>>>As for the efficacy of electric field containment for fusion power, >>>>>>>I'll admit I haven't read the reference articles on this compressions >>>>>>>system, but it seems very optimistic to assume it will even work well >>>>>>>enough to break even, much less provide power. > >>>>>>I can't follow this. Why do you assume its so dificult? > >>>>>Because if it were so easy, it would already be giving us cheap >>>>>fusion power. > >>>>That asumes theirs a market for it. Specifically one big enough to pay for >>>>the R&D. Comercial research in exotic power sources, especially ones >>>>invoving nuclear, died when the fuel crises evaporated. > >>>At the very least, this means that there is a significant R&D cost >>>associated with it. However, the potential profit is so great, >>>that the perceived risk must also be great for commercial concerns >>>to avoid it. (The perceived risk being that even after all that >>>R&D it won't work.) > >>You forget. We are awash in cheap fuel, few new power plants of anykind are >>planed in the next 20+ years, and a fusion plant might mot be any cheaper >>then conventional. Add to that the general expectation (and stated claims by >>them) that eco groups will attack Fusion plants as rabidly as nuclear plants >>(the power companies are still smarting over that), and you have some very >>reluctant investors. > >Actually, a fusion plant only has to compete with fission plants to >acheive great profit potential. The initial and running costs for >motive fission plants are so great that they're now restricted to >aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The running costs for any >practical fusion plant would be much less than fission or conventional, >so that just leaves initial cost--including R&D. Actually the weight of the power plants reduces them to fairly large craft. Legal restrictions complicated their use so the navy does use them on all large ships. Besides your assuming a fusion plant would be cheaper then a fission or other design. We don't know that they would be, and with current fuel gluts were in no pressing hurry to find out. >For various reasons, naval power plant sales would be the first venue >for any "easy" fusion power plant. Civilian power plants, bigger and >with more restrictions, would come later--but not very much later if >it were so easy. > >>>I personally think magnetic target fusion offers the brightest >>>potential (it's a pulsed fusion concept), but even so the concept >>>is too new and the technology too immature to bank on it. The >>>numbers look a _lot_ more acheivable than either magnetic >>>confinement or inertial confinement. > >>Haven't heard of it. Whats it like? > >It is sort of a mix between traditional magnetic confinement fusion >and inertial confinement fusion. For some reason, no one thought >of doing it until a couple years ago. > >The idea is to start off with a magnetically contained bit of plasma, >like what we can acheive in magnetic confinement fusion reactors >today. This bit of plasma is then compressed using a surge of >electricity through the magnetic coils. This initiates a relatively >extended burst of inertial confinement fusion. > >The temperature and density of the initial plasma obviously >doesn't have to be anywhere near what's needed for fusion, while >the compression is provided by a pulse of magnetic field (which >is easier to do than a pulse of lasers) over a period of time >longer than the laser pulse of ICF. The products also fuse >over a longer period of time, making it easier to tap energy >from the products. > >The fusion ramjet concept is similar to this, except that the >pulse of magnetic field is provided by the motion of the pellet >plasma into a fixed "bottleneck" of strong magnetic field. > >>>>>There are difficulties in dealing with charged plasma, since >>>>>the more charged it is, the more it wants to fly apart (even >>>>>more). The less charged it is, the more you need a stronger >>>>>electric potential difference. Setting up that potential >>>>>difference in the right geometry is challenging as well. > >>>>The geometry for this system is a hollow sphere by the way. > >>>Huh? A conductive hollow sphere cannot generate an electric >>>potential gradient inside it. You'd have to inject electrons >>>into the center in order to attract the (positively charged) >>>fuel particles to it, and rely on the charge of those electrons >>>alone to acheive compression. > >>You charge the hollow sphere. The ionized gas is repeled from it toward the >>center. Which effectivly gets a oposite charge. Fusion products blast >>outward, out of the potential well. > >This does not work. The ionized gas will _not_ be repelled from >the surface of the sphere. Honest. The net force on a charged >particle on the inside of an evenly charged hollow sphere is 0. > >For the same reason, you would be weightless on the inside of a >"hollow Earth", and couldn't stand on it. This has to do with >the fact that both gravity and electric force are inversely >proportional to the square of the distance. > >Any second semester Physics course with Calculus uses this >example. You know, you get a homework assignment where you >have to derive the electric field around various geometrically >shaped objects. Well thats how I read the explanation in Bussards Papers and diagrams. You could get copies through your university libray if you'ld like to check up on it. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 20:39 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1064" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "23:38:42" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "31" "Re: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA29265 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:39:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA29255 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:39:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA03233; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:38:42 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970826233708_1120041106@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1063 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:38:42 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/23/97 12:20:29 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly, > >> All forms of magnetic confinement/compression have been beating >themselves >> blood trying to make it work. So mucg time and money spent with so >little >> results makes me cynical. > >I understand and agree to some extent with your cynicism, but it seems to >me that relativistic velocities would help rather than hinder such an >engine. After all, you are getting what amounts to inertial confinement for >free and even the commercial companies agree (at the moment) that inertial >confinement works best. > >Lee NOt really. The speed the fuels flowing through a scoop engine makes it almost impossible to do anything to it before it blasts past the ship. Doing something organized is much harder. Also anything you do will have to be violent and crude to be done fast enough. Sort of like lighting a match in a huricane wind. But in this case we need to hold up a funnel the size of a county to focus the wind down to the area of the match. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 20:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["744" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "20:45:12" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "24" "Re: starship-design: Unknown" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA00858 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:45:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA00843 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:45:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts7-line15.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.62]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA27045 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:44:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA32023; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:45:12 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708270345.UAA32023@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <970826233656_481498138@emout15.mail.aol.com> References: <970826233656_481498138@emout15.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 743 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Unknown Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:45:12 -0700 KellySt@aol.com writes: > > In a message dated 8/22/97 8:19:07 PM, you wrote: > > >Did anyone else get a bunch of blank messages from "unknown" or was I the > only > >one? > > > >Lee > > Same here > > I'm also geting messages C/O'd from the starship list, but reply to doesn't > list starship as an address. > > Kelly If anyone receives such messages in the future, please forward them _with complete headers_ to owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (which will get to me). With complete header information I may be able to figure out why you got such messages. I have not received such messages either at my efn.org subscription address or my darkwing.uoregon.edu subscription address, so something odd is going on. From owner-starship-design Tue Aug 26 20:52 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1605" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "20:30:10" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "31" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA02619 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:52:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA02607 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:52:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts7-line15.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.62]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA25302 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:29:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA31975; Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:30:10 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708270330.UAA31975@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <01BCB264.078EBD00.lparker@cacaphony.net> References: <01BCB264.078EBD00.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1604 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:30:10 -0700 L. Parker writes: > Steve, > > > For any FTL-moving object, there is one observer moving at a particular > > speed relative to the events in question who will see the object's > > motion as infinitely fast and the events as simultaneous. Consequently > > any FTL motion will look like infinite speed to someone. Does that > > help? :-) > > Sorry, I learned logic in sixth grade, I didn't get physics until high school. > I just can't quite see it. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't > believe in violation of causality, period. Therefore, current understanding > of physical laws as they relate to relativity and FTL MUST be flawed. What I should have said is that "FTL motion _can_ look like infinite speed to someone moving at the right speed". Understanding how that works requires a basic understanding of the Lorentz transformation, which I will leave to more talented and experienced teachers like Taylor and Wheeler. The solution most physicists have settled on is that relativity and FTL are not compatible, and although there is no proof that FTL must be impossible, it seems to be a safe assumption, especially if you want to preserve causality. Although for simplicity, most of the examples have been discussed in the context of special relativity, general relativity is more potentially forgiving of FTL. However, despite tantalizing apparent loopholes, it doesn't seem to allow FTL either; every apparent loophole so far imagined also turns out to be unconstructable, or requires the universe to have properties that it doesn't actually seem to possess. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 07:09 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["326" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "16:07:59" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "13" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA12430 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:09:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA12375 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:09:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id KGT14473; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:08:58 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970827.101218.10614.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <34021224.751B@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-9,11 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 325 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:07:59 -0400 On Mon, 25 Aug 1997 16:15:49 -0700 "Kyle R. Mcallister" writes: > >If you were disconnected from our reality, and travelled FTL, would >causality violate? > >Kyle Mcallister > Disconnect from reality? If you can do that, you may not be able to find this *reality* again. Sounds like magic to me. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 07:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1470" "Tue" "26" "August" "1997" "16:18:12" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "33" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA12650 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:10:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA12609 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:10:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id KGU14473; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:08:58 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970827.101218.10614.1.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <9708261424.AA22865@bit.csc.lsu.edu> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-23,25-31 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1469 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:18:12 -0400 On Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:24:40 -0500 (CDT) kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) writes: >Don't even talk about FTL frames of reference. Some of you may have >played around with space-time graphs and Lorentz transformations in >the 2D case (1 dimension of space, 1 dimension of time), and gotten >the impression that FTL frames of reference are pretty normal, even >though they're "flipped" a bit. This is utterly wrong! FTL frames >of reference in any higher dimension (we live in the 4D case) are >exceedingly bizarre. Unless your familiar with the mathematics of >topology, I'm afraid you probably can't comprehend how bizarre they >are. Suffice it to say that there's no way to construct an atom, >any sort of orbit, any sort of camera, or any sort of person in such >a frame of reference. The topology is such that particles and light >travel infinitely fast in some directions, at finite speeds in others, >and _can't_ travel in other directions. If you _could_ exist in such >a frame of reference, and were sitting in a room, you'd find that >you could see some of the walls, but not others. If you got up and >walked around your chair, you'd be able to see it from some angles, >but not from others. An ftl frame of reference would be like this >from the microscopic level to the global level. >-- Does this mean that we can't navigate in FTL space, or at least not easily? JIm C. I feel the need, the need for expeditious velocity! Pinky and the Brain From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 07:25 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["864" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "09:26:50" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "19" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA15129 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:25:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA15116 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:25:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA27646; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:26:50 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708271426.AA27646@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708261645.JAA30369@tzadkiel.efn.org> from "Steve VanDevender" at Aug 26, 97 09:45:21 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 863 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:26:50 -0500 (CDT) Steve VanDevender wrote: >However, I do think it's accurate to >say that if you claim to be able to link events separated by a spacelike >interval, then you can construct causality violation under the right >conditions. This is true assuming general relativity and a flat or convex universe. If special frames of reference exist, it may be possible to avoid causality violations while having FTL. If the universe is hyperbolic (average energy density is negative), then it's also possible to avoid causality violations. Intuitively speaking, this is the case where the universe is expanding apart so fast that it's impossible to return to where you came from in spacetime. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 07:50 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2979" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "09:51:05" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "60" "Re: starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA19579 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:50:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA19569 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:50:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA00550; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:51:05 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708271451.AA00550@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708261951.MAA00266@watt> from "Ken Wharton" at Aug 26, 97 12:51:03 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2978 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:51:05 -0500 (CDT) Ken Wharton wrote: >Clarification: When I presented those three time travel possibilities, >the difference I meant to specify between B) and C) was that in B) the >universe you leave continues to exist, while in C) it is destroyed. So in case B, what happenned to your ship in the old universe? Does it just wink out of existence when someone travels FTL? In that case, you'd know that lots of people have tried traveling FTL in the past and instead ended up vanishing into nowhere. Take that trip? No thanks! Or does a duplicate copy of the ship remain, but with its FTL drive mysteriously inactive? (Note that it's insufficient to try and restrict universe splitting to "time travel" cases and not FTL. FTL travel _is_ always time travel in at least some frames of reference, assuming the universe is flat/convex.) >In C) I did not mean that the universe would then proceed identically >the second time around; whoever travels back in time can survive and >change things around as reality unfolds again. But this is exactly the same case as in B, except that the old universe doesn't exist anymore. >As for the infinite-universe idea, there are some very good philisophical >reasons why it's very improbable. After all, people we know behave in >predicable ways some of the time. Why would this be if we're in one of >many universes? Every past decision made by anyone would be random; there >would be no pattern to human behavior. It's a strong argument against >the many-worlds idea. No it isn't. Just because decisions are random doesn't mean there's no pattern. Consider the act of randomly rolling a pair of dice. While the outcome is random, there are certain patterns--the result is always an integer between 2 and 12 (inclusive), sevens are most common, etc... >Finally, I agree with Issac that there is a link between quantum mechanics >and time travel. But I currently think that it is not quantum that allows >reverse-causality, but rather reverse-causality that creates quantum effects. Huh? I don't think there's such a link. Quantum mechanics does allow a mechanism by which what appears to be reverse-causality is possible, but OTOH it does so in a way which makes "normal" causality invalid (the idea that a cause will have one of the possible effects in one future universe, rather than _all_ of the possible effects in an infinite continuum of future universes). We currently think that this infinite continuum of possible futures eventually collapses into one, but this _is_ just an assumption--there's simply no way we can test it one way or another. Even if the other possible futures exist, we can never "run into" them, so we can neither prove nor disprove their existence. Thus, for all practical purposes the other futures don't exist. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 07:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1944" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "09:58:49" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "47" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA21128 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:57:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA21112 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 07:57:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA01351; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:58:50 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708271458.AA01351@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCB23B.8E2168A0.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 26, 97 02:59:58 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1943 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:58:49 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Isaac, >> But you have to remember that "instantaneous" is a relative notion. >> Assuming relativity is valid and there are no special frames of >> reference, what you can do is thrust a little bit (sublight) >> before making your trip back. >> With your new frame of reference, "instantaneous" correlates >> different points in space-time. When you "instantaneously" >> travel back, you travel back instantly in your _new_ frame of >> reference. This will let you travel back to meet yourself >> before you left. >Ahh, there is the point though, it lies in the concept of simultaneity, >which really depends on whether space-time is Minkowskian or Galiliean >doesn't it? Despite the lack of proof for or against either one, I >prefer Galilean because a) time is absolute and b) I can understand it >without getting a headache... I gather you're using the definitions by that guy whose web page you forwarded. His notion of "Galilean space-time" is either: 1) Wrong. That is, the numbers don't fit the facts. or 2) Not useful. That is, the numbers do fit the facts, but they are essentially identical to general relativity. They do, however, needlessly introduce an extra concept, "absolute time" in a special frame of reference. There is an almost unimaginably large body of real life data and skeptical experiments confirming General Relativity, but of course it is not and can never be _proven_. Scientific theories are ones which can be disproved by finding phenomena which don't conform to the theory, but no amount of conforming phenomena ever absolutely proves a scientific theory. There is always the possibility that tomorrow some bizarre phenomena will pop up which doesn't conform to the theory. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 08:05 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2330" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "10:06:35" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA23050 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 08:05:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA23032 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 08:05:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA02341; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:06:35 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708271506.AA02341@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <19970827.101218.10614.1.jimaclem@juno.com> from "jimaclem@juno.com" at Aug 26, 97 04:18:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2329 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:06:35 -0500 (CDT) jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >On Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:24:40 -0500 (CDT) kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >writes: >>Don't even talk about FTL frames of reference. Some of you may have >>played around with space-time graphs and Lorentz transformations in >>the 2D case (1 dimension of space, 1 dimension of time), and gotten >>the impression that FTL frames of reference are pretty normal, even >>though they're "flipped" a bit. This is utterly wrong! FTL frames >>of reference in any higher dimension (we live in the 4D case) are >>exceedingly bizarre. Unless your familiar with the mathematics of >>topology, I'm afraid you probably can't comprehend how bizarre they >>are. Suffice it to say that there's no way to construct an atom, >>any sort of orbit, any sort of camera, or any sort of person in such >>a frame of reference. The topology is such that particles and light >>travel infinitely fast in some directions, at finite speeds in others, >>and _can't_ travel in other directions. If you _could_ exist in such >>a frame of reference, and were sitting in a room, you'd find that >>you could see some of the walls, but not others. If you got up and >>walked around your chair, you'd be able to see it from some angles, >>but not from others. An ftl frame of reference would be like this >>from the microscopic level to the global level. >Does this mean that we can't navigate in FTL space, or at least not >easily? It means that we can't _exist_ in an FTL frame of reference, or at least not easily. The very topology of space in an FTL frame of reference is entirely unlike the topology in normal frames of reference. Mathematically, the topology of a normal frame of reference's space is homomorphic to that of a metric space (just take the metric to be how long it takes light to travel from one point to another). The topology of space in an FTL frame of reference is not (the relation, how long it takes light to travel from one point to another, is not a metric). The upshot of which is that notions of near and far aren't valid, so little things like atoms can't exist, and big things made out of atoms can't exist. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 08:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2223" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "10:19:14" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA25939 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 08:18:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA25923 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 08:18:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA03923; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:19:15 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708271519.AA03923@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708262207.PAA31144@tzadkiel.efn.org> from "Steve VanDevender" at Aug 26, 97 03:07:45 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2222 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:19:14 -0500 (CDT) Steve VanDevender wrote: >First of all, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a negative time >value. The only observer-independent notion of time in relativity is >"proper time", i.e. the time that an object experiences itself. In at >least one (probably oversimplified) analysis, FTL motion requires that >the object experience _imaginary_ proper time. It is an oversimplified analysis. It starts off with the very erroneous assumption that FTL frames of reference are enough like STL frames of reference that the equations derived about STL frames of reference can be applied to FTL frames of reference without modification. In particular, some of you are familiar with Einstein's derivation in special relativity of how the passage of time is measured--it's measured by using a clock. The one he uses is a simple "light clock" (two parallel mirrors have a photon bouncing between them and the number of times the photon bounces ticks off time), but the passage of time on even this simple clock reflects the passage of time for everything else (like mechanical clocks, atom clocks, chemical reaction times, etc). The shocking thing about FTL frames of reference is that not even this simple light clock works! In an STL frame of reference, the miracle is that with a Lorentz transformation, the light clock will measure time the same no matter how it's rotated (e.g. whether they are perpendicular to or parallel to the direction of motion is irrelevant). In an FTL frame of reference, the light clock measures time differently depending on how it's rotated--in some angles, time doesn't seem to pass at all (the photon can't catch up to the other mirror)! Therefore, the equations for time dilation, which are derived from the light clock and the Lorentz transformation, simply are not valid for FTL frames of reference. No wonder they spit out a nonsensical notion like time passing in an imaginary direction! In order to analyze FTL frames of reference, you have to go back to basics--the Lorentz transformation. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 08:24 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1053" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "10:25:07" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "22" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA27586 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 08:24:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA27372 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 08:24:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA04565; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:25:07 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708271525.AA04565@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCB264.078EBD00.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 26, 97 07:35:06 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1052 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:25:07 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Sorry, I learned logic in sixth grade, I didn't get physics until high school. >I just can't quite see it. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't >believe in violation of causality, period. Therefore, current understanding >of physical laws as they relate to relativity and FTL MUST be flawed. I was once very skeptical about the strange claims of Special and General Relativity as well. I think practically everyone who's learned about them has gone through a period of trying to come up with examples to disprove it and just not beleiving it. However, it's one of those things where the more you learn and the more you understand, the more you see how compelling it is. It's made all the more compelling the more you realize how much others were also skeptical but have still confirmed the theory in scientific experimentation. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 09:22 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["12718" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "11:23:12" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "275" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA16852 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:22:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA16821 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:22:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA11610; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 11:23:13 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708271623.AA11610@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970826233652_2048883354@emout13.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 26, 97 11:37:44 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 12717 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 11:23:12 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/22/97 1:51:40 PM, you wrote: >>I feel like I'm talking in circles, constantly having to repeat the same >>things to the same responces. We already went over this at the start of >>this pellet track discussion. >I think the problem I'm having is a lot of your pellate track idea is >self-contradictory, and by the time you mention some parts, I've forgotten >others from previous posts. I haven't said anything self-contradictory. You just infer nonsensical things. >>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>In a message dated 8/19/97 11:21:57 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >>>wrote: >>>>Do I have to repeat myself? >>>>The pellet shooters are installed on the fuel packets. >>>>The fuel packets are accelerated to relativistic velocities >>>>with constant course corrections during the acceleration >>>>run so that they arrive near the target system with an error of >>>>10km or less. >Neat trick for an automated probe. The way you phrased this is sounds like >you stop in the star system. I'm assuming you actually mean fly through the >star system? Here's an example. Where does my wording imply anything about stopping? If I say I fire a bunch of machine gun bullets at a Teddy Bear 500m away with an error of 50cm, does that imply in any way that I mean the bullets to stop when they arrive? Sure, I _might_ mean that the bullets are supposed to decelerate themselves near the target Teddy Bear, but since I don't explicitely mention this difficult to accomplish task, why assume? I find this particular point annoying, because right from my very first e-mail, I explicitely described the concept of the deceleration track moving at relativistic speeds catching up with the starship, and from you very first responce you mentionned the problem of these things slamming into the ship, destroying it. >>Oh NO! Not this again! This is how it all started in the first place! >>1. The advantage over integrating the fuel in the ship is that you >> can spread the launch of the fuel packets over a long period of >> time. My example before was how a .5 cruising starship to Bernard's >> Star could have the deceleration track fuel packet drones launched >> over a period of 3 years (starting after the starship's acceleration >> run--all resources prior to launch are devoted to the acceleration >> run and its track). >Not really. If the fuel launchers are to be able to fire the fuel into the >following starship, they can't be to far ahead of it, or going at a radically >different speed. Oh NO! Not this again! Get this notion straight--the fuel launchers and fuel pellets are going to have very high relative velocity with the starship (once it makes headway in the deceleration run--just like the acceleration run, the pellets at the start aren't moving with much relative speed). >They can't just drop the fuel in their wake, even assuming >the following ship could follow in that exact track. The fuel would drift >away over a period of time from interstellar effects, or be blasted out of >the way from the fuel tankers drive beam or nav thrusters. (you did mention >the tankers are in powered, course correcting, flight.) Get this straight. The fuel packet drones have their course corrections during their acceleration run, and this is sufficient to acheive an accuracy of 10km or better (I analyzed this before assuming the target system of Bernard's Star about 6 LY away). I did not explicitly explain that the packet drones don't make course corrections during the cruising run, because: 1. It wasn't necessary. Course corrections during the acceleration run (accomplished by using the accelerating RPB and varying the magnetic field of the magsail) were enough to acheive the desired accuracy of 10km. (The pellets which are shot have to be able to hit an area the size of the starship's ramscoop at 10km.) 2. I would have had to explain about the extra overhead involved in built in thrusters not being worth it. 3. I would have had to explain about the fact that although the pellet shooter itself could be used as a rocket thruster, it has a pathetically low Isp (1km muzzle velocity is merely 100sec Isp). The fuel pellets aren't fired until a short time before reaching the deceleration track's position. Why? To make those interstellar effects irrelevant. >>2. There is no intention to slow the pellet launchers at the star >> system. There never was, there never will be. Anything that >> could have slowed down the pellet launchers would work just as >> well for the starship. >Then the pellats will have to be fired at the rear of the ship. For >collection in rear scoops. An done befor the ship is passed by the tankers. Oh NO! Not this again! How many times do I have to explicitly repeat that the ship turns around 180 degrees for the deceleration run? How many times do I have to explain how the deceleration run is, as far as the starship is concerned, almost identical to the acceleration run? How many times do I have to repeat that the starship turns around 180 degrees for the deceleration run? How many times do I have to repeat that the starship turns around 180 degrees for the deceleration run? How many times do I have to repeat that the fuel pellets travel at a high relative speed to the starship (once it has made significant progress in the acceleration or deceleration run)? How many times do I have to repeat that the acceleration run and deceleration run are essentially identical as far as the starship is concerned? In both cases, the pellet track starts off at a relatively slow speed w.r.t. the ship, and ends up at around .5c w.r.t. the ship. How many times do I have to repeat that the starship turns around 180 degrees for the deceleration run? How many times do I have to repeat that the deceleration track is travelling at relativistic speeds w.r.t the target star system? >>3. The pellets fired from the pellet launchers will indeed be moving >> fast compared to the starship. >>4. There aren't any high speed physical impacts. Remember the whole >> discussion of how the magnetic fields of the magscoop conservatively >> accelerates the incoming plasma? >>5. The high speed of the pellets is an inherent part of the ramjet, >> in that it provides the energy to compress the pellet's plasma >> to initiate fusion. >>6. There is an advantage to the ramjet over a normal rocket in that >> its propellant requirements grow more gently than a rocket does, >> when the desired delta-v is much greater than the Isp * gee. >>>>>No the energy would be released in the scoop system ahead of the ship. >>>>This is just fine. The energy is still in increased kinetic energy >>>>of the particles, which are still funnelled along the magnetic lines >>>>of the ramscoop. It will still be turned into extra forward thrust >>>>when the magnetic nozzle directs those products rearward. >>>>You have to look at this in terms of the inertial frame of the >>>>starship, because that is where the magnetic field of the ramjet >>>>are conservative. >>>Exactly. Fuel impacts frount of ship. That thrust pushes backwards on the >>>ship through the magnetic fields. Unless the later fields accelerate the >>>fuel backward, you have a negative thrust. >>This is exactly what the magnetic nozzle does. But how can it do so >>if it inputs no energy into the plasma, you ask? Because the ramscoop >>didn't remove energy from the plasma in the first place. Magnetic >>fields are conservative. >>Like I said, you have to look at in terms of the inertial frame of the >>ship. If you don't, then it's a lot more complicated because of the >>changing (moving) magnetic fields, which aren't conservative. >>A bit of plasma enters the viscinity of the starship in the "backwards" >>direction with a certain speed V. That means it starts off with a >>kinetic energy of 1/2 V*V*M (M is mass of the bit of plasma). >>Somewhere--it doesn't really matter where--the kinetic energy is >>increased to some higher value due to fusion. This kinetic energy >>will be 1/2 S*S*M, where S is a certain value greater than V. >>The bit of plasma will leave the viscinity of the starship with >>kinetic energy of 1/2 S*S*M, because the only forces acting on >>it are from the fixed magnetic field, which is conservative. >>Thus, it will leave with a speed of S. The only question is, >>in what direction? Assuming none of the fusion products escape >>out the front (because their speed overcame their incoming ramming >>speed), they are moving almost straight backwards, because of the >>magnetic nozzle. >>So afterward, we have a bit of plasma which is moving backward >>with velocity S, greater than the initial speed V. That means >>that the momentum of the bit of plasma has changed in the >>backward direction. >>But wait--there's conservation of momentum! In a closed system >>(the ship + the pellet), there can't be any overall change in >>momentum. We know the pellet has a change in momentum in >>the backward direction. That means _something_ has a change >>in momentum in the forward direction. The only other thing >>out there is the ship. >>Therefore, there is a forward change in momentum in the ship. >Your mising the fact that this doesn't happen at once. Collecting the >fuel as you run over it subjects the scoop system to a serious reward >thrust as he scoop tries to diver the fuel into the engine. This load >must be supported by the scoop fields. I'm aware of this. Which is why I explicitly explained that the magnetic nozzle is what provides the forward thrust. In order to calculate which effect is greater, you need only consider what effect they have on the momentum of the pellet--the ship will necessarily experience an opposite momentum change. >If the fuel is successfully funneled into the engine. We understand how to manipulate plasma with magnetic fields well enough to do this. >The engine can then try to fues it before it blast out the >rear of the ship. After it fuses. You can't have it both ways. First you _insist_ that it will fuse before even entering the scoop. Now you question whether it even has time to fuse. Anyway, I did already explain how the fusion cross section increases linearly with the rate of compression, and how the rate of compression in this design is proportional to the speed of the incoming pellets. The time allowed to fuse with sufficient yield is, of course, also proportional to the speed of the incoming pellets. If this thing works at any speed, it will work at high speed. >Also since the closing velocity is up to .5 C, and the scoop fields arn't >thousands of kilometers deep, it is going to be like hitting a magnetic wall. Make up your mind. Will the pellet fuse in time or will it not? If so, then remember that magnetic fields apply conservative forces, and this extra energy will _still_ produce thrust even though the fusing takes place ahead of the ship. >>The yeilds would be fantastic--if we could inject solid fuel pellets >>at relativistic speeds on the ground into a reactor, we'd get awesome >>fusion yeilds. Unfortunately, that requires getting those solid >>fuel pellets to relativistic speeds in the first place, something >>which is probably impossible in practice, and it also requires an >>efficient way to tap energy from the resulting reaction (otherwise, >>you lose a good fraction of the energy used to accelerate the >>pellet in the first place). >It takes power to compress those pellets that fast in the magnetic scoop. Yes, but the power is entirely from the speed of the incoming pellets. The magnetic scoop, being superconducting, does not require energy to maintain its magnetic field. The pellets, OTOH, see a different thing. They see a changing magnetic field (because to them, the magnetic field is moving at high speed toward them). As they pass through the "bottleneck", it looks to them like the magnetic field lines got compressed. > Also fusion reactions don't happen instently. Even after the particals are >fused, even if every partical in the fuel stream is shoved together >instently, it takes a finite time for the particals to fuse, shuffel neclear >particals, and then throw the resulting fussion particals outward. By then >these particals could be well past the ship. The speed of fusion is dependant upon the fusion cross section. The higher the cross section, the faster the fusing. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 09:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2975" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "11:37:04" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "63" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA20516 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:36:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA20503 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:36:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA13355; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 11:37:05 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708271637.AA13355@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970826233716_608555162@emout05.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 26, 97 11:38:00 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2974 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 11:37:04 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/23/97 12:37:20 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >wrote: >>Actually, a fusion plant only has to compete with fission plants to >>acheive great profit potential. The initial and running costs for >>motive fission plants are so great that they're now restricted to >>aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The running costs for any >>practical fusion plant would be much less than fission or conventional, >>so that just leaves initial cost--including R&D. >Actually the weight of the power plants reduces them to fairly large craft. Huh? Nuclear power plants have been operated on _aircraft_ (research into a nuclear powered bomber included actual flights of a conventionally propelled bomber with a nuclear power plant operated on board). They are light and small enough to potentially be used on smaller ships, but they are expensive. > Legal restrictions complicated their use so the navy does use them on all >large ships. Mostly, however, they are expensive. Otherwise, the USN would find a way to go all nuclear. Thanks to the late Admiral Rickover, at least our submarine fleet is all nuclear. >Besides your assuming a fusion plant would be cheaper then a fission or other >design. We don't know that they would be, and with current fuel gluts were >in no pressing hurry to find out. I state, "Actually, a fusion plant only has to compete with fission plants to acheive great profit potential." Nothing about any "other design". Our current fossil fuel glut doesn't have much bearing here. >>>You charge the hollow sphere. The ionized gas is repeled from >>>it toward the center. Which effectivly gets a oposite charge. >>>Fusion products blast outward, out of the potential well. >>This does not work. The ionized gas will _not_ be repelled from >>the surface of the sphere. Honest. The net force on a charged >>particle on the inside of an evenly charged hollow sphere is 0. >Well thats how I read the explanation in Bussards Papers and diagrams. You >could get copies through your university libray if you'ld like to check up on >it. Like I said, beware of anything you read (yes, this includes anything I write, but please at least try to keep what I write straight). Bussard has made mistakes before, and this sounds like another one of them. His original concept for microwave laser sail propulsion used a ring of microwave emitters--but that doesn't work--so he later came up with the fresnel lens concept. Also, his original ramjet concept used a _solid_ physical ramscoop which stopped (relative to the ship) and captured interstellar (protium) hydrogen, and then fused it to get thrust. The number of ridiculous notions in that original concept is left as a mental exercise for the reader. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 09:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1438" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "18:34:56" "+0200" "Zenon Kulpa" "zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: The speed of now" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA20579 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:36:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (zmit1.ippt.gov.pl [148.81.53.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA20537 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 09:36:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from zkulpa@localhost) by zmit1.ippt.gov.pl (8.8.5/8.7.3-zmit) id SAA26572; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 18:34:56 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708271634.SAA26572@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Zenon Kulpa Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1437 From: Zenon Kulpa Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl Subject: Re: starship-design: The speed of now Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 18:34:56 +0200 (MET DST) > From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) > [...] > That value is D = [t ^ 2 - x ^ 2]. The distance between any two > events, measured in terms of D (where t is the time-separation in > seconds and x is the distance separation in light-seconds) will be > identical in all frames. > As far as I remember it should be D = x^2 - t^2 (or rather: D = x^2 + (it)^2, where i = Sqrt(-1)). Or am I wrong? > For light, D=0. Thus my assertion that light "really" travels > infinitely fast. > > For STL, D>0. The time is always larger than the distance. > Rather (using my formula for D) - distance larger than time. It would be intuitively natural: you never have enough time to be in time... ;-) > But for FTL, D<0. You also get D<0 for local time travel; set x=0 (you > don't go anywhere) and set t<0 (you go back in time). > t^2 >= 0 always, also when t < 0. In my version of the formula for D, D < 0 always when x = 0 and t =/= 0. Something is still wrong... > Therefore the D > associated with time travel is equivalent with the D associated with > FTL. It's very simple to take two FTL journeys, one out and one back, > that gets you to return before you left. > > Just another way of thinking about it, I guess. Which, of course, was > probably more confusing than illuminating... > This interpretation wouild be quite illuminating for me, except for the problem with D < 0 for x = 0... -- Zenon From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 10:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1286" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "10:47:46" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "28" "Re: starship-design: The speed of now" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA17381 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:48:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA17366 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:48:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA06681 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:46:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA01205; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:47:46 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708271747.KAA01205@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <199708271634.SAA26572@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> References: <199708271634.SAA26572@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1285 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: The speed of now Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:47:46 -0700 Zenon Kulpa writes: > > From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) > > > [...] > > That value is D = [t ^ 2 - x ^ 2]. The distance between any two > > events, measured in terms of D (where t is the time-separation in > > seconds and x is the distance separation in light-seconds) will be > > identical in all frames. > > > As far as I remember it should be D = x^2 - t^2 > (or rather: D = x^2 + (it)^2, where i = Sqrt(-1)). > Or am I wrong? This is partly a matter of convention. You can choose either metric ((t^2 - x^2) or (x^2 - t^2)) as long as you're consistent. _Spacetime Physics_ by Taylor and Wheeler uses (t^2 - x^2), which I happen to like because it's more computationally convenient for some purposes. _Gravitation_ by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler uses (x^2 - t^2) (well, the 4-d version (x^2 + y^2 + z^2 - t^2)), and also includes a large conversion chart showing the sign choices used by various authors, which also indicates there apparently hasn't been much widespread agreement on sign conventions. The (x^2 + (i*t)^2) form has fallen into disfavor. There's a sidebar in _Gravitation_ where the authors explain why they don't like it. It's another attempt to make things computationally convenient but is somewhat conceptually misleading. From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 13:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2936" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "13:07:13" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "62" "starship-design: Vectors and Scalars" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA04612 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:07:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id NAA04596 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:07:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA05823; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:07:13 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA03405; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:07:13 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708272007.NAA03405@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2935 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Vectors and Scalars Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:07:13 -0700 Zenon Writes: >> But for FTL, D<0. You also get D<0 for local time travel; set x=0 (you >> don't go anywhere) and set t<0 (you go back in time). >> >t^2 >= 0 always, also when t < 0. >In my version of the formula for D, >D < 0 always when x = 0 and t =/= 0. >Something is still wrong... You're right... according to what I said anyway. But there's a subtle sign issue here, and I'm pretty sure I am right that FTL is equivalent to staying in the same place and travelling backwards in time. Here's the thing: D = t^2 - x^2 (let's use this notation) is not a vector; it's a scalar. All it is is a number that tells you how far apart two events in spacetime are, in a way that is independant of ALL reference frames. Travelling from A to B will always give the same value as travelling from B to A. It's a distance, not a direction. The reason there's no direction built in to D, is that in STL travel all journeys go in the same direction -- forward in time. You're always travelling forward in time, so there's no need to consider going backwards. But now, since we Are considering travel in both directions, we need to create some new notation. If travel from A to B is forward in time, travel from B to A is backward in time: back in time simply means travel in the opposite direction, so we can define a positive D to be travel forward in time, (the usual way), and a negative D to correspond to backwards in time travel. We're turning the scalar D into a vector, by adding a sign that correspons with the direction of travel. SO - when you start going FTL and D changes signs, that signifies that you're now travelling the opposite direction in time than you were. The idea that you take the square root of a negative number and get an imaginary proper time is wrong, I believe. The negative sign only signifies that you're now travelling in the opposite direction that is normally assumed when you're travelling STL. As I understand it, there are no imaginary numbers involved; when you move from STL to FTL the sign of D changes, which merely signifies that the Direction of travel shifts from forward-in-time to backwards-in-time. This works the other way around, too. If there's an object that's (somehow) travelling backwards in time while going STL, if that object goes FTL it will then go forwards in time again; two negative signs make a plus. The crucial issue is thinking about FTL and STL in terms of invariant parameters like D, parameters that don't change from frame to frame. One you start talking about frame-dependant parameters like time and space by themselves, FTL without time travel might seem to make sense. But when viewed in terms of frame-independant parameters, the speed of light is no longer some random large number, but rather the only possible number: an infinite speed, a speed that can only be exceeded by sacrificing causality. Ken From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 13:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4346" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "13:28:46" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "91" "starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA11851 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:28:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id NAA11832 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:28:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA06221; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:28:45 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA03501; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:28:46 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708272028.NAA03501@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4345 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:28:46 -0700 Isaac writes: >(Note that it's insufficient to try and restrict universe splitting >to "time travel" cases and not FTL. FTL travel _is_ always time >travel in at least some frames of reference, assuming the universe >is flat/convex.) True. I wasn't thinking about FTL, just time travel. But pure philosophy can get you a long way when talking about something as paradoxical as time travel, even without throwing in FTL physics. But maybe by adding in FTL time-travel you can further restrict the possible time-travel philosophies. >>In C) I did not mean that the universe would then proceed identically >>the second time around; whoever travels back in time can survive and >>change things around as reality unfolds again. > >But this is exactly the same case as in B, except that the old universe >doesn't exist anymore. True again; maybe they're identical. Or maybe the division between B) and C) should have been whether the time travel creates the new universe, or whether it was there all along, waiting for you to come into it. >>As for the infinite-universe idea, there are some very good philisophical >>reasons why it's very improbable. After all, people we know behave in >>predicable ways some of the time. Why would this be if we're in one of >>many universes? Every past decision made by anyone would be random; there >>would be no pattern to human behavior. It's a strong argument against >>the many-worlds idea. > >No it isn't. Just because decisions are random doesn't mean there's >no pattern. Consider the act of randomly rolling a pair of dice. >While the outcome is random, there are certain patterns--the result >is always an integer between 2 and 12 (inclusive), sevens are most >common, etc... Do you really think that every pattern in the world is simply a matter of chance? You can do an experiment of asking people how they're doing. A large portion of them will actually respond by saying "fine" or whatever, even though the odds of everyone "randomly" behaving this way (and not saying random words, clawing your eyeballs out, etc.) are inconceivable. Every time you can even somewhat-accurately predict how someone will react to a given set of circumstances, you are helping to refute the infinite- universe possibility. >>Finally, I agree with Issac that there is a link between quantum mechanics >>and time travel. But I currently think that it is not quantum that allows >>reverse-causality, but rather reverse-causality that creates quantum effects. > >Huh? I don't think there's such a link. Quantum mechanics does allow >a mechanism by which what appears to be reverse-causality is possible, >but OTOH it does so in a way which makes "normal" causality invalid >(the idea that a cause will have one of the possible effects in one >future universe, rather than _all_ of the possible effects in an >infinite continuum of future universes). > >We currently think that this infinite continuum of possible futures >eventually collapses into one, but this _is_ just an assumption--there's >simply no way we can test it one way or another. Even if the other >possible futures exist, we can never "run into" them, so we can neither >prove nor disprove their existence. Thus, for all practical purposes >the other futures don't exist. Okay - I'm not only being speculative, but I'm so far off the main topic that I won't delve into it. Suffice to say, I think that the accepted explanation of quantum mechanics is going to undergo a revolutionary change in the next decade or two, and it's going to link reverse-causality with quantum effects. The idea is that when both causality and reverse- causality happen together, the result is what we observe as quantum-type effects. On the macroscopic scale, where reverse causality can't happen, you get the non-quantum world. It replaces wave-particle duality with the idea that all matter is made of particles, but they seem to behave like waves because of backwards-causal interactions with their own future. If this does become accepted some day it won't have a direct impact on starship design, other than to supply a fundamental explanation of why macroscopic time-travel is impossible, and therefore why FTL is impossible. I'll leave it there for now. But don't forget -- you heard it here first. Ken From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 21:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1391" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "22:06:10" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "37" "starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA23341 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 21:06:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA23314 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 21:06:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.83]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA08973 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 00:06:28 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <34050741.3AA9@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1390 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 22:06:10 -0700 Greetings: I think its safe to say this: 1) FTL probably won't be possible within the next 200 years. As far as the distant future, I'm convinced that we will someday find a way to do it right. Right now, we can't even speculate on the tech necessary though. 2) FTL may one day be performed in such a way that the time travel part is nullified. Since we don't know what happens at FTL (we've never been there) we can't make any assumtions. There may be some obscure phenomena (like Hawking's time protection system) that would allow FTL, but cancel timetravel. 3) We may find a way of generating gravity fields without matter, so that we can build alcubierre type ships, that have no causal problems. 4) Maybe we can make hyper-jumps across space to avoid FTL, but avoid traversing the space between points. (bring two sides of a paper together, cross the edge, and unfold. No causal problems. A few other things: Wouldn't wormholes be causality violating? What is a preffered reference frame, and why would it maybe allow FTL? Why can't light (as in the light clock) be carried with you at FTL speed? FTL+C may work at FTL. Unanswered question: If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years earth time, how far back in time do I travel upon return? Kyle Mcallister "The secrets of flight will not be mastered within our lifetime...not within a thousand years." -Wilbur Wright (1901) From owner-starship-design Wed Aug 27 21:07 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["523" "Wed" "27" "August" "1997" "22:06:57" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "19" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA23533 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 21:07:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA23512 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 1997 21:07:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-83.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.83]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA12352 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 00:07:14 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <34050771.2A9E@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <34021224.751B@sunherald.infi.net> <19970827.101218.10614.0.jimaclem@juno.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 522 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 22:06:57 -0700 jimaclem@juno.com wrote: > > On Mon, 25 Aug 1997 16:15:49 -0700 "Kyle R. Mcallister" > writes: > > > > >If you were disconnected from our reality, and travelled FTL, would > >causality violate? > > > >Kyle Mcallister > > > Disconnect from reality? If you can do that, you may not be able to find > this *reality* again. Sounds like magic to me. Trans-dimensional (possible 5D+?) or Trans hyperspace travel (a wormhole that itself moves FTL, and you with it) Or something more peculiar. Kyle From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 01:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3326" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "03:34:06" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "72" "Re: starship-design: Vectors and Scalars" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA09070 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 01:33:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id BAA09061 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 01:33:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA28130; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 03:34:07 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708280834.AA28130@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708272007.NAA03405@watt> from "Ken Wharton" at Aug 27, 97 01:07:13 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3325 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Vectors and Scalars Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 03:34:06 -0500 (CDT) Ken Wharton wrote: >Zenon Writes: >>> But for FTL, D<0. You also get D<0 for local time travel; set x=0 (you >>> don't go anywhere) and set t<0 (you go back in time). >>t^2 >= 0 always, also when t < 0. >>In my version of the formula for D, >>D < 0 always when x = 0 and t =/= 0. >>Something is still wrong... >You're right... according to what I said anyway. But there's a subtle >sign issue here, and I'm pretty sure I am right that FTL is equivalent to >staying in the same place and travelling backwards in time. What is this nonsense? No, FTL is not equivalent to staying in place and travelling backwards in time. >Here's the thing: D = t^2 - x^2 (let's use this notation) is not a >vector; it's a scalar. All it is is a number that tells you how far >apart two events in spacetime are, in a way that is independant of ALL >reference frames. Travelling from A to B will always give the same value >as travelling from B to A. It's a distance, not a direction. This number can still be negative or positive. It isn't a "distance" except in the loosest colloquial sense. >The reason there's no direction built in to D, is that in STL travel all >journeys go in the same direction -- forward in time. I don't think you understand what's going on here mathematically at all. The reason it's not a "vector" is that it is a scalar (which is just a special case of a vector). And this is because of how it's defined mathematically. It has absolutely nothing to do with STL, FTL, or time travel. It's just a formula for a number. Mathematically, it's not even a metric (a mathematician's notion of distance in a metric space), although it is a relation (a fancy name for a function on two inputs). >As I understand it, there are no imaginary numbers involved; when you >move from STL to FTL the sign of D changes, which merely signifies that >the Direction of travel shifts from forward-in-time to backwards-in-time. You have got a really screwed up understanding. >The crucial issue is thinking about FTL and STL in terms of invariant >parameters like D, parameters that don't change from frame to frame. One >you start talking about frame-dependant parameters like time and space by >themselves, FTL without time travel might seem to make sense. But when >viewed in terms of frame-independant parameters, the speed of light is no >longer some random large number, but rather the only possible number: an >infinite speed, a speed that can only be exceeded by sacrificing >causality. What nonsense is this? How do you propose defining speed in terms of invariant parameters? Since you talk about light having infinite "speed", I presume you are using D as a notion of time (speed=distance/time). What do you propose using as a notion of distance in an invariant way? In order for use D in any way which makes sense here, you need to take the square root of it. For two events within each other's light cones, this square root exists and can be either positive or negative. For two events outside each other's light cones, this square root doesn't exist, unless you want to use complex numbers. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 01:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2909" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "03:47:07" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "66" "Re: starship-design: Re: Paradox" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA10464 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 01:46:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id BAA10452 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 01:46:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA29330; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 03:47:08 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708280847.AA29330@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708272028.NAA03501@watt> from "Ken Wharton" at Aug 27, 97 01:28:46 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2908 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Paradox Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 03:47:07 -0500 (CDT) Ken Wharton wrote: >Isaac writes: >>>In C) I did not mean that the universe would then proceed identically >>>the second time around; whoever travels back in time can survive and >>>change things around as reality unfolds again. >>But this is exactly the same case as in B, except that the old universe >>doesn't exist anymore. >True again; maybe they're identical. Or maybe the division between B) and >C) should have been whether the time travel creates the new universe, or >whether it was there all along, waiting for you to come into it. Whatever. I'm just responding to what you actually did write. >>>As for the infinite-universe idea, there are some very good philisophical >>>reasons why it's very improbable. After all, people we know behave in >>>predicable ways some of the time. Why would this be if we're in one of >>>many universes? Every past decision made by anyone would be random; >there >>>would be no pattern to human behavior. It's a strong argument against >>>the many-worlds idea. >>No it isn't. Just because decisions are random doesn't mean there's >>no pattern. Consider the act of randomly rolling a pair of dice. >>While the outcome is random, there are certain patterns--the result >>is always an integer between 2 and 12 (inclusive), sevens are most >>common, etc... >Do you really think that every pattern in the world is simply a matter of >chance? Our current understanding of physics is _exactly_ this. However, you apparently do not understand a significant amount about probability. >You can do an experiment of asking people how they're doing. A >large portion of them will actually respond by saying "fine" or whatever, >even though the odds of everyone "randomly" behaving this way (and not >saying random words, clawing your eyeballs out, etc.) are inconceivable. >Every time you can even somewhat-accurately predict how someone will react >to a given set of circumstances, you are helping to refute the infinite- >universe possibility. Here you demonstrate how little you understand about probability and what it means to be a random event. Consider a hypothetical lottery which is randomly determined. You buy one of those tickets. Whether you win or not is random, and yet the most likely result is that you lose. Just because something is random doesn't mean the chances are 50-50. Similarly, if you go up to John Smith and ask him how he's doing. Most of the time he'll say "fine". >I'll leave it there for now. But don't forget -- you heard it here first. Actually, Fienman already proposed that antimatter could be interpreted as normal matter travelling backwards in time. This doesn't have anything to do with causality, though. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 10:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2242" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "10:41:41" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "47" "starship-design: Irrational Odds" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA03692 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 10:41:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA03661 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 10:41:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA16730; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 10:41:40 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA10690; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 10:41:41 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708281741.KAA10690@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2241 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Irrational Odds Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 10:41:41 -0700 Isaac writes: >>You can do an experiment of asking people how they're doing. A >>large portion of them will actually respond by saying "fine" or whatever, >>even though the odds of everyone "randomly" behaving this way (and not >>saying random words, clawing your eyeballs out, etc.) are inconceivable. >>Every time you can even somewhat-accurately predict how someone will react >>to a given set of circumstances, you are helping to refute the infinite- >>universe possibility. > >Here you demonstrate how little you understand about probability and >what it means to be a random event. > >Consider a hypothetical lottery which is randomly determined. You >buy one of those tickets. Whether you win or not is random, and >yet the most likely result is that you lose. Just because something >is random doesn't mean the chances are 50-50. > >Similarly, if you go up to John Smith and ask him how he's doing. >Most of the time he'll say "fine". Ahhh - but once you start thinking in terms of multiple universes, you lose the idea of probability. What does it mean to have one universe that is less probable than another? If a universe exists it's probability is one; the only probability involved is Which universe we happen to find ourselves in right now. And that would mean that there have to be a lot of identical universes where John Smith says "fine" for every universe in which he says "hovercraft" just to make the odds turn out right. But that leads to more problems. Suppose you have a quantum event that has a 1/pi chance of coming out A, and a (1 - 1/pi) chance of coming out B. If the universe really splits off into alternate possible universes for each outcome, with each of the universes as "real" as the others, then there's no way to do it. Even if you have lots of universes, because pi is irrational there's no way to make the odds come out correctly. I suppose it's still possible that nature has somehow "forced" all quantum probabilities to be rational numbers, so that the right number of universes can split off and still keep the correct odds, but this is getting ever more philisophically unwieldy. All in all, I think this is a pretty strong argument for a single universe. Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 12:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["773" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "13:01:04" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "26" "starship-design: Many things..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA03032 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:01:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA03005 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:01:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-74.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-74.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.74]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA03902 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:01:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <3405D8FF.19AD@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 772 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Many things... Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 13:01:04 -0700 Greetings: Why when you are travelling FTL, does causality violate in only some reference frames? Why would a preffered reference frame eliminate this problem? Have we measured Time dilation directly? Speed (.01C+) What if you carried your light/lightcone with you at FTL, in a way that eliminates TD and Lorentz contraction? What if you were in an alcubierre ship, travelling FTL, and your power source died? Would you eliminate? What causes Centrifugal force EXACTLY? What causes inertia EXACTLY? Is it at all possible that there is something we have yet to find which would provide a loophole for FTL? (not by 2050) Kyle Mcallister Here's a dreadful thought: what if someday at .99999+C we find out that Einstein was wrong there? Bad news for timetravel. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 12:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2332" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "12:13:13" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "52" "starship-design: One more try..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA07048 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:13:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA07022 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:13:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA18712; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:13:12 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA11629; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:13:13 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708281913.MAA11629@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2331 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: One more try... Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:13:13 -0700 Isaac writes: >>You're right... according to what I said anyway. But there's a subtle >>sign issue here, and I'm pretty sure I am right that FTL is equivalent to >>staying in the same place and travelling backwards in time. > >What is this nonsense? No, FTL is not equivalent to staying in >place and travelling backwards in time. Yeah, I was getting pretty nonsensical there. Too many references to time, space, speed, and other imprecise, frame-dependant terms that totally obscured my underlying point. Here it goes from scratch. There are four classes of journeys one can even consider making. A) Within your forward time cone (All STL and light-speed falls in here) B) Out of your forward light cone, but still (from Earth's perspective) forward in time. C) With your backwards time cone (Staying in the same place but travelling backwards in time. D) Our of your backwards light cone, but still (from Earth's perspective) backwards in time. The first point is that there is no difference between B and D. They are both FTL and they are both identical. The only distinction is made from Earth's perspective, so it is not a real distinction. For those of you who think that B-type FTL journeys are okay and D-type are not, that is an artifical separation that can only be true if there is a preferred reference frame. You can't outlaw D without outlawing B, and therefore outlawing all FTL. My point about FTL (B and D) being equivalent to travelling backwards in time in the same place (C) was obviously not literally correct. What I was trying to say was that they are equivalent in the sense that if it is possible to move out of your forward light cone with FTL (i.e. if B and D are possible) then C becomes possible as well. This is obvious; A D-type trip away from Earth, followed by a D-type trip back to Earth, will add up to a C-type trip. Other examples include Adding a B-type and a D-type trip to get a C-type. There are lots of ways to go backwards in time once FTL (B and D) is allowed. The only way to avoid C-type trips is to demand that D-type trips are impossible. But Because D-type trips are equivalent to B-, if time travel is forbidden, so is FTL. That was all I was trying to say. Sorry for trying to do it in unspecific terms; I confused even myself. Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 12:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3531" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "12:37:13" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "78" "starship-design: Many things..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA14371 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:37:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA14361 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:37:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA07736 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:36:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA04844; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:37:13 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708281937.MAA04844@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <3405D8FF.19AD@sunherald.infi.net> References: <3405D8FF.19AD@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 3530 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Many things... Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:37:13 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > Why when you are travelling FTL, does causality violate in only some > reference frames? Isaac has shown that you can construct a situation in which causality is violated in _all_ reference frames via a round trip FTL message; all observers will agree that the incoming FTL message was received before the outgoing message was sent in that situation. When I was attempting to explain the fundamental behavior that leads to this situation, I was using a somewhat looser definition of causality. However, if you claim a direct cause-and-effect relationship between two events via FTL communication, the frame measurements of those events will show one time order for observers below a certain velocity and the other time order for observers above a certain velocity, making the notion of which is cause and which is effect completely frame-dependent. For LETL (less-than-or-equal-to-light) relationships, cause and effect are frame-independent. This is all a simple consequence of the Lorentz transformation. If you haven't read your copy of _Spacetime Physics_ yet, get cracking. Digest the information yourself, rather than expecting us to spoon-feed it to you. > Why would a preffered reference frame eliminate this problem? A preferred reference frame (one in which observations were "more real" than in any other) would allow you to claim that there really was a consistent explanation of FTL-connected events accessible to all observers. Relativity, however, does not have any preferred reference frames, and there is no evidence that any exist. No observer has observations that are "more real" than any other observer's. > Have we measured Time dilation directly? Speed (.01C+) Experiments using highly accurate clocks have measured time dilation at speeds much less than 0.01 c (one of the frequently cited experiments involved flying atomic clocks on aircraft). Subatomic particles have been accelerated to within extremely tiny fractions of c, and have been observed to have decay times perfectly consistent with the predicted time dilation effects. Don't even bother trying to claim that a macroscopic object could behave differently at relativistic speeds than subatomic particles do. We already have an excellent idea of the relationship between the behavior of the microscopic and the macroscopic, and your claim would have observable consequences if it were true, which it's not. > What if you carried your light/lightcone with you at FTL, in a way that > eliminates TD and Lorentz contraction? Then you have somehow figured out how to leave our universe, because you are in a region of completely different physical laws. > What causes Centrifugal force EXACTLY? Inertia, and nothing else. To move an object in a circular path you must continuously exert acceleration on the object. For someone sitting on the object this acceleration is perceived as centrifugal force. > What causes inertia EXACTLY? I've never seen anyone claim to know, but it's even more observationally supported than relativity. > Is it at all possible that there is something we have yet to find which > would provide a loophole for FTL? (not by 2050) Is it at all possible that the sun will go nova by 2050? Maybe, but there's absolutely no evidence to support it. > Here's a dreadful thought: what if someday at .99999+C we find out that > Einstein was wrong there? Bad news for timetravel. We've already seen things go at 0.99999+ c. Einstein hasn't been wrong yet. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 13:29 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4136" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "15:30:20" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "93" "Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA02657 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 13:29:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id NAA02625 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 13:29:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA17235; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:30:20 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708282030.AA17235@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <34050741.3AA9@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 27, 97 10:06:10 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4135 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:30:20 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >I think its safe to say this: >1) FTL probably won't be possible within the next 200 years. As far as >the distant future, I'm convinced that we will someday find a way to do >it right. Right now, we can't even speculate on the tech necessary >though. Well, the good news is that even if FTL travel turns out to be impossible, there will always be countless humans who will be convinced it must somehow be possible, so it won't be because we stop trying. (Assuming we don't go extinct, of course.) And of course, I'm assuming that those humans who try to figure out how to go FTL aren't idiots. Seeing as the likes of Stephen Hawking won't rule out the possibility of FTL, I think that's a safe assumption. Of course, he doesn't rule out the possibility of time travel either. >2) FTL may one day be performed in such a way that the time travel part >is nullified. Since we don't know what happens at FTL (we've never been >there) we can't make any assumtions. There may be some obscure phenomena >(like Hawking's time protection system) that would allow FTL, but cancel >timetravel. But we can make deductions about how FTL would work given our current understanding of physics. However, if you're going to play that game you've got to first learn our current understanding of physics. One tool which really is useful is the Lorentz transformation, because it is a _geometrical_ transformation of space-time (it doesn't require or directly use any information about the velocity of the points being transformed, only their positions in space-time). This is critical because you can use it for anything--FTL or not, "continuosly existing" or "teleporting". >3) We may find a way of generating gravity fields without matter, so >that we can build alcubierre type ships, that have no causal problems. Alcubierre type ships probably _do_ have causal problems. Alcubierre himself noted that it wouldn't be difficult to slightly modify his metric to produce a closed-time causality loop. >4) Maybe we can make hyper-jumps across space to avoid FTL, but avoid >traversing the space between points. (bring two sides of a paper >together, cross the edge, and unfold. No causal problems. Yes, there are causal problems. The typical example, of which I gave one, doesn't require anything about the FTL communication signal other than the fact that it arrives at its destination at a particular speed faster than light would have. It's irrelevant what happenned to the signal "in the meantime". It could have been doing loop-de-loops or it could have disappeared from the universe altogether. >A few other things: >Wouldn't wormholes be causality violating? In a flat/convex space, yes. However, it looks like in order to make them, you need space to be hyperbolic (average energy density is negative). >What is a preffered reference frame, and why would it maybe allow FTL? A prefered reference frame is one which is inherently different from others. One of the easiest to understand methods of FTL without time travel is to assign some particular reference frame to be THE prefered reference frame. Somehow, FTL travel is allowed, but only at speeds where it doesn't go backwards in time in this particular reference frame. This means Mach's principle of relativity is wrong, because you could tell one reference frame from another by trying to go FTL and determining at which velocities you couldn't move. >Why can't light (as in the light clock) be carried with you at FTL >speed? FTL+C may work at FTL. The light clock is a geometrical construction, which assumes that the speed of light is constant. This assumption is reasonable given the amount of experimental evidence in its favor. >Unanswered question: If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years earth time, >how far back in time do I travel upon return? It depends upon how much you accelerate away (sublight) from Earth before returning. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 13:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2742" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "15:36:18" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "56" "Re: starship-design: Irrational Odds" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA04112 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 13:35:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id NAA04091 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 13:35:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA17925; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:36:18 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708282036.AA17925@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708281741.KAA10690@watt> from "Ken Wharton" at Aug 28, 97 10:41:41 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2741 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Irrational Odds Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:36:18 -0500 (CDT) Ken Wharton wrote: >Isaac writes: >>>You can do an experiment of asking people how they're doing. A >>>large portion of them will actually respond by saying "fine" or whatever, >>>even though the odds of everyone "randomly" behaving this way (and not >>>saying random words, clawing your eyeballs out, etc.) are inconceivable. >>>Every time you can even somewhat-accurately predict how someone will >react >>>to a given set of circumstances, you are helping to refute the infinite- >>>universe possibility. >>Here you demonstrate how little you understand about probability and >>what it means to be a random event. >>Consider a hypothetical lottery which is randomly determined. You >>buy one of those tickets. Whether you win or not is random, and >>yet the most likely result is that you lose. Just because something >>is random doesn't mean the chances are 50-50. >>Similarly, if you go up to John Smith and ask him how he's doing. >>Most of the time he'll say "fine". >Ahhh - but once you start thinking in terms of multiple universes, you lose >the idea of probability. What does it mean to have one universe that is >less probable than another? If a universe exists it's probability is one; >the only probability involved is Which universe we happen to find ourselves >in right now. And that would mean that there have to be a lot of identical >universes where John Smith says "fine" for every universe in which he says >"hovercraft" just to make the odds turn out right. If a universe exists, its probability of existing is indeed 1. So? If we can never access that universe, what difference does that make? BTW, out current understanding doesn't just involve 1 or two or a million million million simultaneous possibilities--it involves an infinite continuum of possibilities. It's not even a countable infinity. >But that leads to more problems. Suppose you have a quantum event that has >a 1/pi chance of coming out A, and a (1 - 1/pi) chance of coming out B. If >the universe really splits off into alternate possible universes for each >outcome, with each of the universes as "real" as the others, then there's >no way to do it. Even if you have lots of universes, because pi is >irrational there's no way to make the odds come out correctly. Wrong. Consider the act of choosing randomly from [0,1] with the Lebesgue probability distribution. The probability of picking a number in [0,1/pi] is exactly 1/pi. I'm not about to go through the trouble of teaching you measure theory and probability theory. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 14:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4591" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "15:58:53" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "104" "Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA04976 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 14:59:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA04963 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 14:59:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-109.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-109.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.109]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA24371 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:59:09 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <340602AC.1C46@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <9708282030.AA17235@bit.csc.lsu.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 4590 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:58:53 -0700 Isaac Kuo wrote: > > Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: > >I think its safe to say this: > > >1) FTL probably won't be possible within the next 200 years. As far as > >the distant future, I'm convinced that we will someday find a way to do > >it right. Right now, we can't even speculate on the tech necessary > >though. > > Well, the good news is that even if FTL travel turns out to be > impossible, there will always be countless humans who will be > convinced it must somehow be possible, so it won't be because > we stop trying. (Assuming we don't go extinct, of course.) > > And of course, I'm assuming that those humans who try to figure > out how to go FTL aren't idiots. Seeing as the likes of Stephen > Hawking won't rule out the possibility of FTL, I think that's a > safe assumption. Of course, he doesn't rule out the possibility > of time travel either. > > >2) FTL may one day be performed in such a way that the time travel part > >is nullified. Since we don't know what happens at FTL (we've never been > >there) we can't make any assumtions. There may be some obscure phenomena > >(like Hawking's time protection system) that would allow FTL, but cancel > >timetravel. > > But we can make deductions about how FTL would work given our current > understanding of physics. However, if you're going to play that game > you've got to first learn our current understanding of physics. > > One tool which really is useful is the Lorentz transformation, because > it is a _geometrical_ transformation of space-time (it doesn't require > or directly use any information about the velocity of the points being > transformed, only their positions in space-time). This is critical > because you can use it for anything--FTL or not, "continuosly existing" > or "teleporting". > > >3) We may find a way of generating gravity fields without matter, so > >that we can build alcubierre type ships, that have no causal problems. > > Alcubierre type ships probably _do_ have causal problems. Alcubierre > himself noted that it wouldn't be difficult to slightly modify his > metric to produce a closed-time causality loop. > > >4) Maybe we can make hyper-jumps across space to avoid FTL, but avoid > >traversing the space between points. (bring two sides of a paper > >together, cross the edge, and unfold. No causal problems. > > Yes, there are causal problems. The typical example, of which I gave > one, doesn't require anything about the FTL communication signal other > than the fact that it arrives at its destination at a particular > speed faster than light would have. It's irrelevant what happenned > to the signal "in the meantime". It could have been doing loop-de-loops > or it could have disappeared from the universe altogether. > > >A few other things: > > >Wouldn't wormholes be causality violating? > > In a flat/convex space, yes. However, it looks like in order to > make them, you need space to be hyperbolic (average energy density > is negative). > > >What is a preffered reference frame, and why would it maybe allow FTL? > > A prefered reference frame is one which is inherently different from > others. One of the easiest to understand methods of FTL without > time travel is to assign some particular reference frame to be THE > prefered reference frame. Somehow, FTL travel is allowed, but only > at speeds where it doesn't go backwards in time in this particular > reference frame. > > This means Mach's principle of relativity is wrong, because you could > tell one reference frame from another by trying to go FTL and > determining at which velocities you couldn't move. > > >Why can't light (as in the light clock) be carried with you at FTL > >speed? FTL+C may work at FTL. > > The light clock is a geometrical construction, which assumes that > the speed of light is constant. This assumption is reasonable given > the amount of experimental evidence in its favor. Actually, the speed of light is not constant in a vacuum, but can be sped up...its too in depth to post, but it happens in a casimir cavity. Ask Steve, he knows more. > > >Unanswered question: If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years earth time, > >how far back in time do I travel upon return? > > It depends upon how much you accelerate away (sublight) from Earth > before returning. Lets say I navigate around the star system 1600 lightyears away for, say 5 years, and return to earth in 2 years earthtime. Is there an equation for this? Question: How do we know time runs backwards in FTL? Then again, how do we know time runs forward here... Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 15:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1320" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "15:13:18" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "30" "Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA09725 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:13:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA09707 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:13:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA27150 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:12:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA05237; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:13:18 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708282213.PAA05237@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <340602AC.1C46@sunherald.infi.net> References: <9708282030.AA17235@bit.csc.lsu.edu> <340602AC.1C46@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1319 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:13:18 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > Actually, the speed of light is not constant in a vacuum, but can be > sped up...its too in depth to post, but it happens in a casimir cavity. > Ask Steve, he knows more. Don't even try to make it look like I'll support you on this, Kyle, because I won't. I don't think you know enough about the Casimir effect to explain why it changes the speed of light, and I don't think you can justify any sort of useful FTL effect based on it. I won't argue such a thing, nor will I claim to know enough about the Casimir effect to try to explain it to anyone. > > >Unanswered question: If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years earth time, > > >how far back in time do I travel upon return? > > > > It depends upon how much you accelerate away (sublight) from Earth > > before returning. > > Lets say I navigate around the star system 1600 lightyears away for, say > 5 years, and return to earth in 2 years earthtime. Is there an equation > for this? > > Question: How do we know time runs backwards in FTL? Then again, how do > we know time runs forward here... It isn't that time runs backward in FTL, it's that observers of a hypothetical FTL trip won't agree on the direction that it proceeded based on their measurements of the times and locations of each end of the trip. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 15:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1821" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "16:51:31" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "44" "Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA23009 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:51:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA22987 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:51:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-109.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-81.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.81]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA04393 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:51:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <34060F02.E@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <9708282030.AA17235@bit.csc.lsu.edu> <340602AC.1C46@sunherald.infi.net> <199708282213.PAA05237@tzadkiel.efn.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 1820 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:51:31 -0700 Steve VanDevender wrote: > > Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > > Actually, the speed of light is not constant in a vacuum, but can be > > sped up...its too in depth to post, but it happens in a casimir cavity. > > Ask Steve, he knows more. > > Don't even try to make it look like I'll support you on this, Kyle, > because I won't. I don't think you know enough about the Casimir effect > to explain why it changes the speed of light, and I don't think you can > justify any sort of useful FTL effect based on it. I won't argue such a > thing, nor will I claim to know enough about the Casimir effect to try > to explain it to anyone. You told me it was caused by increasing the magnetic permeability of the vacuum. There's no need to go off the deep end, I wasn't intending to use this (not until we find a way to use something like it on a larger scale. Wouldn't a simple casimir cavity violate causality if you passed photon through it? > > > > >Unanswered question: If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years earth time, > > > >how far back in time do I travel upon return? > > > > > > It depends upon how much you accelerate away (sublight) from Earth > > > before returning. > > > > Lets say I navigate around the star system 1600 lightyears away for, say > > 5 years, and return to earth in 2 years earthtime. Is there an equation > > for this? > > > > Question: How do we know time runs backwards in FTL? Then again, how do > > we know time runs forward here... > > It isn't that time runs backward in FTL, it's that observers of a > hypothetical FTL trip won't agree on the direction that it proceeded > based on their measurements of the times and locations of each end of > the trip. Then I don't see why causality violation is such a big deal. A disagreement I can live with. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 16:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1819" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "16:01:42" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "36" "Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA26942 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:02:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA26931 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:02:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA03265 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:00:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA05365; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:01:42 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708282301.QAA05365@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <34060F02.E@sunherald.infi.net> References: <9708282030.AA17235@bit.csc.lsu.edu> <340602AC.1C46@sunherald.infi.net> <199708282213.PAA05237@tzadkiel.efn.org> <34060F02.E@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1818 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:01:42 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > You told me it was caused by increasing the magnetic permeability of the > vacuum. There's no need to go off the deep end, I wasn't intending to > use this (not until we find a way to use something like it on a larger > scale. Wouldn't a simple casimir cavity violate causality if you passed > photon through it? I told you that's what I _supposed_ it was, based on my incomplete understanding of the effect and my now distant college physics course in electromagnetism. You misrepresented my words by saying I really knew something about it, and I'd prefer that you not. > > It isn't that time runs backward in FTL, it's that observers of a > > hypothetical FTL trip won't agree on the direction that it proceeded > > based on their measurements of the times and locations of each end of > > the trip. > > Then I don't see why causality violation is such a big deal. A > disagreement I can live with. It is a big deal because this disagreement in event ordering for a one-way trip also implies that, should you allow FTL, you can build causality loops that every observer will agree are causality loops, which is a much more serious problem. It's something that's not physically observed or compatible with the existing structure of physics. You can't wave your hand and say "oh, it's not really a problem, I can live with that" except out of sheer ignorance of the problem. I think we've run this whole FTL and causality business into the ground, and it's time to move on. Face it, Kyle, we aren't going to build an FTL starship nor am I particularly interested in having to keep revisiting this issue because you won't accept that limitation. If you have to talk about speculative physics with someone, find a group that is actually interested in dealing with it. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 16:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["133" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "11:27:38" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "10" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA27088 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:02:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA27072 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:02:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p26.gnt.com [204.49.68.231]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA09586 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:02:27 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:02:25 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB3DC.8A316040.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 8 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 132 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 11:27:38 -0500 Isaac, > I gather you're using the definitions by that guy whose web page you > forwarded. Why do you think I was grinning? Lee From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 16:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1140" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "11:36:50" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "27" "RE: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA27114 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:02:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA27100 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:02:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p26.gnt.com [204.49.68.231]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA09593 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:02:31 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:02:29 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB3DC.8C9540E0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 25 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1139 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 11:36:50 -0500 Isaac, > I was once very skeptical about the strange claims of Special and > General Relativity as well. I think practically everyone who's > learned about them has gone through a period of trying to come up > with examples to disprove it and just not believing it. However, > it's one of those things where the more you learn and the more you > understand, the more you see how compelling it is. It's made all > the more compelling the more you realize how much others were also > skeptical but have still confirmed the theory in scientific > experimentation. I don't really have a problem with relativity, unless it starts violating causality. Even Einstein had a problem with what he called "spooky action at a distance" and that was merely simultaneous - not an actual violation of causality. I just don't think it is possible to create a causality violation, with or without FTL. (If you can do it with FTL then FTL isn't possible.) Lee -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 16:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2215" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "16:45:53" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "48" "starship-design: Infinite Schizophrenia" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA12325 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:45:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA12299 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:45:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA22986; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:45:53 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA14701; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:45:53 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708282345.QAA14701@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2214 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Infinite Schizophrenia Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:45:53 -0700 Isaac writes: >>Ahhh - but once you start thinking in terms of multiple universes, you lose >>the idea of probability. What does it mean to have one universe that is >>less probable than another? If a universe exists its probability is one; > >If a universe exists, its probability of existing is indeed 1. So? >If we can never access that universe, what difference does that make? Maybe this is the source of the confusion. I AM talking about jumping from one universe to another. We got on this thread talking about possible time travel theories, one of which was jumping into alternate universes as a way of avoiding various paradoxes. Sounds to me like you're just talking about an infinite number of possible universes, not universes that actually exist. (Either that or you're just playing devil's advocate?) I completely agree with you that there are infinitely many possiblilities that the universe Could evolve into. What I don't believe is that there ARE an infinite number of different universes, and my consciousness is continually splitting up into an infinite number of different "selves", and this particular "self" I find myself in is just a matter of chance. I think there are some strong philisophical arguments to support this claim, even if the number of universes involved is infinite. Occam's razor comes to mind. >BTW, out current understanding doesn't just involve 1 or two or a >million million million simultaneous possibilities--it involves an >infinite continuum of possibilities. It's not even a countable >infinity. When you say "our current understanding" what exactly are you invoking? The sum-over-all-possible-universes theory says that this universe is the sum of all possibilities, but that there is still only one universe. Other theories treat the universe as a "block" that does not evolve in time but rather was created with all quantum events already determined. We're well beyond established facts here; more in the realm of philosophy than physics, probably. Of course, if we're dropping the FTL threads, I suppose we can drop the time travel and alternate universe stuff as well. Giant relativistic flywheels, anyone? Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 17:16 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1919" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "19:17:13" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "41" "Re: starship-design: FTL" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA21983 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:16:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA21967 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:16:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA13581; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:17:13 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708290017.AA13581@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCB3DC.8C9540E0.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 28, 97 11:36:50 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1918 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:17:13 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >I don't really have a problem with relativity, unless it starts violating >causality. Even Einstein had a problem with what he called "spooky action >at a distance" and that was merely simultaneous - not an actual violation >of causality. I just don't think it is possible to create a causality >violation, with or without FTL. (If you can do it with FTL then FTL isn't >possible.) One thing is for sure--a _true_ causality violation is impossible. It is a mathematical impossibility to truly kill your own grandfather so he never fathered your father. It's as impossible as assigning a true/false value to the statement, "This statement is false." or finding a real number x such that x^2 is -1. However, just as it is possible to invent logic systems with more than true/false, and just as it is possible to extend to complex numbers where i^2 = -1, it might be possible that the universe is modeled by an extention of what we normally think of as causality (the solution to a complex differential equation). It's possible, but not necessarily so. And note that just as with the other extensions I mention, this extension would be very bizarre compared to the "normal" case. BTW, the problem with differential equations is that sometimes no solution exists. What happens if the universe is modelled by a differential equation where no solution exists? Well...it can't happen--it's like asking what happens if there were a rational number whose square was 2. What really could happen is that using our understanding of physics, our best mathematical models which best fit the universe might be a differential equation where no global solution exists--and our best model is by definition incomplete. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 17:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2416" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "19:29:24" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "61" "Re: starship-design: Many things..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA25494 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:28:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA25476 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:28:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA14775; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:29:25 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708290029.AA14775@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <3405D8FF.19AD@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 28, 97 01:01:04 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2415 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Many things... Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:29:24 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Have we measured Time dilation directly? Speed (.01C+) Yes. We've confirmed it in clocks on aircraft travelling around the world, on the space shuttle, GPS satellites (which simply wouldn't work right if our calculations on time dilation were wrong). Also, we've confirmed time dilation in subatomic particles in that their decay times dilate according to relativity. >What if you carried your light/lightcone with you at FTL, in a way that >eliminates TD and Lorentz contraction? The problems with FTL causing communication back in time have nothing to do with the light cone of the travelling messages/ships /beams/whatever. It has everything to do with the reference frames of the SUBLIGHT ships/persons/whatever which send the messages/ships/beams/whatever. >What if you were in an alcubierre ship, travelling FTL, and your power >source died? Would you eliminate? It depends upon exactly how the Alcubierre metric was accomplished in the first place. Alcubierre never noted how it might be done, although Pfenning and Ford proposed a rough method (which requires more energy than their is in the universe, so...). >What causes Centrifugal force EXACTLY? Centrifugal force exactly does not exist, except as a useful mathematical construct for use along with the Coriolis force in doing calculations within a rotating frame of reference. >What causes inertia EXACTLY? No one knows. That is exactly how far our understanding of inertia goes. We don't even know why inertial mass and gravitational mass seem to be absolutely identical as far as we can measure. It's a useful factoid, of course, but there's no proposed theoretical explanation. >Is it at all possible that there is something we have yet to find which >would provide a loophole for FTL? (not by 2050) Of course. >Kyle Mcallister >Here's a dreadful thought: what if someday at .99999+C we find out that >Einstein was wrong there? Bad news for timetravel. What's so dreadful about that? Time travel examples don't need speeds that fast. The one I posted didn't. The FTL signal travels faster, of course, but I only needed the Lorentz transformation for the sublight ships A and B, which were going sublight. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 17:56 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2379" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "19:57:55" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "52" "Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA03054 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:56:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA03034 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:56:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA17640; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:57:56 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708290057.AA17640@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <340602AC.1C46@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 28, 97 03:58:53 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2378 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:57:55 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Actually, the speed of light is not constant in a vacuum, but can be >sped up...its too in depth to post, but it happens in a casimir cavity. >Ask Steve, he knows more. Actually, the speed of light is constant in a vacuum, its just that what we normally think of as vacuum isn't really completely empty. The casimir effect is a means by which one can "suck out" from a normal vacuum, making it a more perfect vacuum. The speed of light within this cavity is thus made slightly faster than that outside, closer to its "true" speed (in a "true" vacuum). It's potential to "increase" the speed of light is an imperceptibly small percentage, however. It's still less than 300,000km/s. >> >Unanswered question: If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years earth time, >> >how far back in time do I travel upon return? >> It depends upon how much you accelerate away (sublight) from Earth >> before returning. >Lets say I navigate around the star system 1600 lightyears away for, say >5 years, and return to earth in 2 years earthtime. Is there an equation >for this? Sorry, you just don't understand. It depends upon how much you accelerate away from Earth before returning. I won't go through all the calculations, because you won't understand them. Not without drawings of space-time diagrams, at least, which really can't be drawn in ASCII. Jay Hinson's FAQ on relativity and FTL does a noble attempt at it (he regularly posts it on rec.arts.sf. startrek.tech and rec.arts.sf.science less regularly). >Question: How do we know time runs backwards in FTL? Then again, how do >we know time runs forward here... The problems with FTL causing causality problems have nothing at all to do with time "running backwards" in FTL. It only has to do with stuff in STL frames of reference. A naive calculation of time dilation with FTL frames of reference would show time running in an _imaginary_ direction. Strange? Yes. But it's because this naive use of the formula for time dilation isn't valid for FTL frames of reference. Like I said before, you'd have real difficulty getting an atom, much less an entire clock, to exist in an FTL frame of reference. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 18:13 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1009" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "18:13:05" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "21" "Re: starship-design: Many things..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA06467 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:13:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA06457 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:13:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA19769 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:12:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA05675; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:13:05 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708290113.SAA05675@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <9708290029.AA14775@bit.csc.lsu.edu> References: <3405D8FF.19AD@sunherald.infi.net> <9708290029.AA14775@bit.csc.lsu.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1008 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Many things... Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:13:05 -0700 Isaac Kuo writes: > Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: > > >Have we measured Time dilation directly? Speed (.01C+) > > Yes. We've confirmed it in clocks on aircraft travelling around > the world, on the space shuttle, GPS satellites (which simply > wouldn't work right if our calculations on time dilation were > wrong). Also, we've confirmed time dilation in subatomic > particles in that their decay times dilate according to relativity. It's also probably worth noting that the low-speed macrosopic tests, such as loading an atomic clock on an aircraft and flying it around, actually are better at demonstrating general relativistic effects (the difference in gravity between the ground and 20,000 feet altitude) than special relativistic effects (the motion of the plane relative to the ground). The special relativistic effects in such experiments are noticeably above the experimental error, but not by a whole lot. See the discussion in _Spacetime Physics_ of one of the aircraft experiments. From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 18:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5337" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "20:27:30" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "116" "Re: starship-design: Infinite Schizophrenia" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA09008 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:26:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id SAA08989 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:26:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA20993; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 20:27:30 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708290127.AA20993@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199708282345.QAA14701@watt> from "Ken Wharton" at Aug 28, 97 04:45:53 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5336 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: Infinite Schizophrenia Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 20:27:30 -0500 (CDT) Ken Wharton wrote: > Isaac writes: >>>Ahhh - but once you start thinking in terms of multiple universes, you >lose >>>the idea of probability. What does it mean to have one universe that is >>>less probable than another? If a universe exists its probability is one; >>If a universe exists, its probability of existing is indeed 1. So? >>If we can never access that universe, what difference does that make? >Maybe this is the source of the confusion. I AM talking about jumping from >one universe to another. Well, maybe so. I knew what you were talking about. I knew what I was talking about. >We got on this thread talking about possible time >travel theories, one of which was jumping into alternate universes as a way >of avoiding various paradoxes. But jumping into an alternate universe isn't a way of avoiding time travel paradoxes, it's a way of avoiding time travel altogether. If you're jumping into an alternate universe, you are by definition not traveling back in time. The future in this alternate universe has nothing to do with your past. >Sounds to me like you're just talking about an infinite number of possible >universes, not universes that actually exist. In our current understanding of wave-particle duality, these infinite number of "possible" universes actually do exist. That's why we can get interference patterns even if only one particle is being absorbed by the photographic plate at a time. You don't get smooth interference patterns from just 1 or 2 or a dozen possibilities. Maybe a million billion possibilities would work, but by Occam's razor it's simpler just to assume they _all_ are propogated. We make an assumption that all the other universes cease to exist once the difference between them and our own becomes big enough to notice. However, this is just an assumption--one which can't be proven or disproven. >I completely agree with you that there are >infinitely many possiblilities that the universe Could evolve into. >What I don't believe is that there ARE an infinite number of >different universes, and my consciousness is continually splitting >up into an infinite number of different "selves", and this particular >"self" I find myself in is just a matter of chance. That belief can never be proven one way or another, you know. However, if we develop time travel, the infinite number of different universes model will become the simplest explanation. >I think there are some strong philisophical arguments to >support this claim, even if the number of universes involved is infinite. >Occam's razor comes to mind. Actually, Occam's razor would suggest abandoning the notion of waveform collapse altogether and that this infinite continuum of parallel universes exist. It's simply not a necessary part of our current physics models that the other universes cease to exist at some point. >>BTW, out current understanding doesn't just involve 1 or two or a >>million million million simultaneous possibilities--it involves an >>infinite continuum of possibilities. It's not even a countable >>infinity. >When you say "our current understanding" what exactly are you invoking? >The sum-over-all-possible-universes theory says that this universe is the >sum of all possibilities, but that there is still only one universe. This sum is actually a probability distribution, of all possible universes. Calling the entirety "one universe" is simply using the terminology differently. >Other >theories treat the universe as a "block" that does not evolve in time but >rather was created with all quantum events already determined. Actually, it's irrelevant in this model "when" the quantum events are deteremined (not that it makes any sense, really). The relevant notion is that the choice of which possibility is the "real" universe is ever made at all. This is that notion of waveform collapse, where the "real" universe is picked randomly from the probability distribution of all possible universes. It is a slight, but intuitively compelling, complication to our model of the universe. You know about Shroedinger's cat, right? This is a thought experiment whereby a cat is placed in an opaque box, with a radiation detector attached to a vial of cyanide. If the radiation detector is hit by an atomic particle, it will release the cyanide and kill the cat. If not, the cat lives. A radiation source is placed by the detector so that there's a roughly 50-50 chance that it will emit an atomic particle at the detector within 10 minutes. The researcher then opens the box. What happens to the cat? Is it alive or dead? When did it die? According to the former model, the cat is both alive and dead--depending upon which universe one's looking at. According to the latter model, the cat is either dead or alive, depending upon what happenned in the real universe. Now here's the disturbing thing--even in the latter model, the cat was in a very real sense in the same 50-50 limbo state as in the former model until the researcher openned the door. Otherwise, we can't explain why interference patterns occur in low light situations and such. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 19:56 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["387" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "19:56:17" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "13" "starship-design: Fair Enough" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA27603 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:56:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id TAA27587 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:56:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id TAA24898; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:56:15 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id TAA15579; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:56:17 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199708290256.TAA15579@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 386 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Fair Enough Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:56:17 -0700 >>What I don't believe is that there ARE an infinite number of >>different universes >That belief can never be proven one way or another, you know. I'm not so sure, but it'll be awhile. I'll want and see how the Great 21st Century Quantum Shake-Up works out. My bet, though, is that they'll toss out possible universes and replace it with reverse causality. But who knows... Ken From owner-starship-design Thu Aug 28 20:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1252" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "23:39:57" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "30" "Re: Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA06513 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 20:40:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout10.mail.aol.com (emout10.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.25]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA06502 for ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 20:40:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout10.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA29677; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 23:39:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970828233737_513774132@emout10.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1251 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 23:39:57 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/25/97 12:29:41 PM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >Sorry I have'nt posted in a while, been busy getting children ready to >start school and sick family members. I've been perusing this thread on >FTL travel, and I have a question. My relativity is'nt what it should >be, but all this talk of causality violations brings to mind objects >travelling faster than sound. Now I know that this is'nt quite the same >thing, but, could these causality violations just a result of limited >sensing ability, ie, our sensors work only a light speed, but our (ships, >torpedoes, comm systems) work FTL. Kind of like seeing an explosion >before you hear it. Help me out here. > >Thanks > >Jim C. Kind of depends on your point of view. Obviously to those in the FTL ship time seems to go in the same direction. Just the outside seems to going backwards until they slow down. From a certian point of view all cause and effect is going normally. But from the stay at homes point of view you reported back before you let. Teribly confusing. Especially if you warn yourself what not to do on the trip before you go. More than likely, nature is less disrupted by this then we are, and only stable future pasts will not self cancel. Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 29 07:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2262" "Thu" "28" "August" "1997" "18:21:46" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "49" "RE: starship-design: One more try..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA26586 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 07:04:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA26573 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 07:04:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p3.gnt.com [204.49.68.208]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA20568 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 09:04:04 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 09:04:00 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB45A.7DAA4B60.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 47 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2261 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: One more try... Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:21:46 -0500 Ken, > There are four classes of journeys one can even consider making. > > A) Within your forward time cone (All STL and light-speed falls in here) > B) Out of your forward light cone, but still (from Earth's perspective) > forward in time. > C) With your backwards time cone (Staying in the same place but travelling > backwards in time. > D) Our of your backwards light cone, but still (from Earth's perspective) > backwards in time. > > The first point is that there is no difference between B and D. They are > both FTL and they are both identical. The only distinction is made from > Earth's perspective, so it is not a real distinction. For those of you who > think that B-type FTL journeys are okay and D-type are not, that is an > artificial separation that can only be true if there is a preferred > reference frame. You can't outlaw D without outlawing B, and therefore > outlawing all FTL. Awww, Gee, all I really wanted for Christmas was B... > My point about FTL (B and D) being equivalent to travelling backwards in > time in the same place (C) was obviously not literally correct. What I was > trying to say was that they are equivalent in the sense that if it is > possible to move out of your forward light cone with FTL (i.e. if B and D > are possible) then C becomes possible as well. C is a matter of slight of hand, if you can move back to the same point in your space line and backwards to an earlier point in your time line then it doesn't really matter how many permutations in time and space it took to get there. Only the end result will count. > This is obvious; A D-type trip away from Earth, followed by a D-type trip > back to Earth, will add up to a C-type trip. Other examples include Adding > a B-type and a D-type trip to get a C-type. There are lots of ways to go > backwards in time once FTL (B and D) is allowed. No it isn't obvious, you've defined TWO cases A and B, C is a subset and D is simply B- NOT the other way around. To say that B isn't possible because D isn't is the same thing as saying the square root of one isn't possible because the square root of minus one isn't possible. I'm not necessarily arguing with your conclusions, just your method of getting there. Lee From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 29 07:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["921" "Fri" "29" "August" "1997" "09:01:32" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "23" "RE: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA26596 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 07:04:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA26577 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 07:04:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p3.gnt.com [204.49.68.208]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA20574 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 09:04:08 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 09:04:05 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB45A.80B604C0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 21 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 920 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 09:01:32 -0500 Kyle, Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > Actually, the speed of light is not constant in a vacuum, but can be > sped up...its too in depth to post, but it happens in a casimir cavity. > Ask Steve, he knows more. Actually, the speed of light IS constant in a vacuum. I've covered this one once before. The Casimir effect simply creates a nearly perfect vacuum, thereby allowing light to travel almost exactly at the defined speed of light. It DOES NOT SPEED UP. All normally observed light transmission is through a medium, however thin it might be. Space is not a perfect vacuum, and besides the Casimir effect, neither is anything else we have yet created. The Casimir effect functions by creating a space between two charged plates that is too small to contain ANY particles, therefore a perfect vacuum. Since this space is so small, you CAN'T put a ship inside it. It also cannot be made spherical either. Lee From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 29 10:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2729" "Fri" "29" "August" "1997" "12:46:20" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "57" "Re: starship-design: One more try..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA00809 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 10:45:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA00786 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 10:45:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA02359; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 12:46:21 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708291746.AA02359@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCB45A.7DAA4B60.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 28, 97 06:21:46 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2728 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: One more try... Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 12:46:20 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Ken, >> There are four classes of journeys one can even consider making. >> A) Within your forward time cone (All STL and light-speed falls in here) >> B) Out of your forward light cone, but still (from Earth's perspective) >> forward in time. >> C) With your backwards time cone (Staying in the same place but travelling >> backwards in time. >> D) Our of your backwards light cone, but still (from Earth's perspective) >> backwards in time. >> The first point is that there is no difference between B and D. They are >> both FTL and they are both identical. The only distinction is made from >> Earth's perspective, so it is not a real distinction. For those of you who >> think that B-type FTL journeys are okay and D-type are not, that is an >> artificial separation that can only be true if there is a preferred >> reference frame. You can't outlaw D without outlawing B, and therefore >> outlawing all FTL. >Awww, Gee, all I really wanted for Christmas was B... Then maybe you want a special frame of reference, and for that special frame of reference to be that of Earth (?!?!!!). But we can't always get what we want. >C is a matter of slight of hand, if you can move back to the same point in >your space line and backwards to an earlier point in your time line then it >doesn't really matter how many permutations in time and space it took to >get there. Only the end result will count. Yes, and what's important to note is that the examples of using FTL from time travel only depend upon the end result in B type travel. It doesn't matter what permutations it took to get there, so long as you get there (and Earth's frame of reference isn't a special frame of reference). >> This is obvious; A D-type trip away from Earth, followed by a D-type trip >> back to Earth, will add up to a C-type trip. Other examples include Adding >> a B-type and a D-type trip to get a C-type. There are lots of ways to go >> backwards in time once FTL (B and D) is allowed. >No it isn't obvious, you've defined TWO cases A and B, C is a subset and >D is simply B- NOT the other way around. To say that B isn't possible >because D isn't is the same thing as saying the square root of one isn't >possible because the square root of minus one isn't possible. Wrong, to say B isn't possible because D isn't is the same thing as saying the square root of -9 isn't possible because the square root of -1 isn't possible. It's skipping a lot of steps, but the two situations _are_ basically the same. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Fri Aug 29 10:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2739" "Fri" "29" "August" "1997" "12:59:57" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "55" "Re: Re: starship-design: FTL idea" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA05770 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 10:59:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA05747 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 10:58:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA03945; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 12:59:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708291759.AA03945@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970828233737_513774132@emout10.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 28, 97 11:39:57 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2738 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: FTL idea Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 12:59:57 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/25/97 12:29:41 PM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: >>Sorry I have'nt posted in a while, been busy getting children ready to >>start school and sick family members. I've been perusing this thread on >>FTL travel, and I have a question. My relativity is'nt what it should >>be, but all this talk of causality violations brings to mind objects >>travelling faster than sound. Now I know that this is'nt quite the same >>thing, but, could these causality violations just a result of limited >>sensing ability, ie, our sensors work only a light speed, but our (ships, >>torpedoes, comm systems) work FTL. Kind of like seeing an explosion >>before you hear it. Help me out here. The problem is more serious, and it's not so easy to explain without pictures of space-time diagrams why FTL travel, relativity, and a flat/convex space implies time travel. Suffice it to say that assuming these three factors, you can go back in time and meet yourself/kill your grandfather/etc... >Kind of depends on your point of view. Obviously to those in the FTL ship >time seems to go in the same direction. Just the outside seems to going >backwards until they slow down. Actually not. Assuming you're not warping space-time ala wormhole or Alcubierre metric, you're in a true FTL frame of reference. It is NOT OBVIOUS that time seems to be going in a normal direction to you! Why? Because time won't seem to be going in any normal direction. You can define your own subjective time in a bunch of ways, but they all basically boil down to time being what's measured by a "clock" (whether that clock is a digital or analog, biological, or chemical, in sublight frames of reference they all agree). The problem with an FTL frame of reference is that "clocks" don't work. Even the simplest of theoretical clocks, Einstein's hypothetical light clock (two mirrors with a photon bouncing between them) doesn't work right. At some angles, the clock will operate, but not always at the same speed! At other angles, the clock won't operate at all. More complex clocks made out of atoms can't even exist in an FTL frame of reference--atoms just can't be constructed in the bizarre topology of an FTL frame of reference. This is a point which few people seem to note--I attribute this to the popularity of 2D space-time diagrams. In the case of a 1D universe, FTL frames of reference _do_ look normal, just with space and time flipped. However, with a 2D or 3D universe, FTL frames of reference are absolutely bizarre. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 30 12:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2778" "Sat" "30" "August" "1997" "14:59:59" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "64" "Re: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil "starship-design: Pellet track" nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA02983 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 12:00:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA02967 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 12:00:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id OAA27154; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 14:59:59 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970830145958_566986060@emout19.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2777 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 14:59:59 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/27/97 10:37:05 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/23/97 12:37:20 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >>wrote: > >>>Actually, a fusion plant only has to compete with fission plants to >>>acheive great profit potential. The initial and running costs for >>>motive fission plants are so great that they're now restricted to >>>aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The running costs for any >>>practical fusion plant would be much less than fission or conventional, >>>so that just leaves initial cost--including R&D. > >>Actually the weight of the power plants reduces them to fairly large craft. > >Huh? Nuclear power plants have been operated on _aircraft_ >(research into a nuclear powered bomber included actual flights >of a conventionally propelled bomber with a nuclear power plant >operated on board). They are light and small enough to potentially >be used on smaller ships, but they are expensive. Not a power plant with the power to drive an aircraft or ship. The nuclear airplane research program caried A power plant, but not one that could power it, much less one that was SHEILDED. Surface area rules are nasty to small nukes. About the only small nuclear ship was the Savana. She ran well, but the reactors weight cut into her cargo capacity, and long shorman refused to unload her. Some ports refused her entry. >> Legal restrictions complicated their use so the navy does use them on all >>large ships. > >Mostly, however, they are expensive. Otherwise, the USN would find >a way to go all nuclear. Thanks to the late Admiral Rickover, at >least our submarine fleet is all nuclear. Life cycle wise nukes aren't as expensive then conventional plants. Not that thats much of an argument for DOD contracts. Subs need the air free nature, and Carriers need to stay clear of ports (and would burn non-nuke fuel at a tremendous rate). >>Besides your assuming a fusion plant would be cheaper then a fission or other >>design. We don't know that they would be, and with current fuel gluts were >>in no pressing hurry to find out. > >I state, "Actually, a fusion plant only has to compete with fission >plants to acheive great profit potential." Nothing about any "other >design". Our current fossil fuel glut doesn't have much bearing here. You forget that fission plants are cheaper to operate (and about the same to build) as other plants. So by def, to compete cost wise with fission plants it would need to be able to compete with other commercial plants. Give cheap plentifull conventional fuels, and a ton of legeslative and political overhead on nuclear plants here they are far more trouble then they are worth. But the same is likely to be true of fusion plants. From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 30 12:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1330" "Sat" "30" "August" "1997" "14:59:59" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "46" "Re: starship-design: Many things..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil "starship-design: Many things..." nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA02987 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 12:00:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout16.mail.aol.com (emout16.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.42]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA02968 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 12:00:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id OAA06819; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 14:59:59 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970830145940_-1234008628@emout16.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1329 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Many things... Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 14:59:59 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/28/97 1:02:13 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (Kyle R. Mcallister) wrote: >Greetings: > >Why when you are travelling FTL, does causality violate in only some >reference frames? >Why would a preffered reference frame eliminate this problem? > >Have we measured Time dilation directly? Speed (.01C+) > >What if you carried your light/lightcone with you at FTL, in a way that >eliminates TD and Lorentz contraction? > >What if you were in an alcubierre ship, travelling FTL, and your power >source died? Would you eliminate? > >What causes Centrifugal force EXACTLY? Inertia. Your still traveling forward and the centrafuge floor made a sudden turn. You have to accelerate in toward the center of the centrifuge to keep up with the floor. >What causes inertia EXACTLY? NO one knows. Physisists would really like to know about that, or kinetic energy, or mass. Might be due to an interaction between space time and the particals of an object. Might not. >Is it at all possible that there is something we have yet to find which >would provide a loophole for FTL? (not by 2050) Of course. We might figure it out next week. Or might never find it. >Kyle Mcallister > >Here's a dreadful thought: what if someday at .99999+C we find out that >Einstein was wrong there? Bad news for timetravel. ?? From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 30 15:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2530" "Sat" "30" "August" "1997" "16:02:33" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "60" "Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil "starship-design: FTL and time travel" nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA04444 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 15:02:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA04435 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 15:02:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-71.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-92.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.92]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA27820; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 18:02:40 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <3408A688.6F39@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <9708290057.AA17640@bit.csc.lsu.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2529 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: Isaac Kuo CC: Starship list Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 16:02:33 -0700 Isaac Kuo wrote: > > Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: > > >Actually, the speed of light is not constant in a vacuum, but can be > >sped up...its too in depth to post, but it happens in a casimir cavity. > >Ask Steve, he knows more. > > Actually, the speed of light is constant in a vacuum, its just that > what we normally think of as vacuum isn't really completely empty. > The casimir effect is a means by which one can "suck out" from a > normal vacuum, making it a more perfect vacuum. The speed of > light within this cavity is thus made slightly faster than that > outside, closer to its "true" speed (in a "true" vacuum). It's > potential to "increase" the speed of light is an imperceptibly > small percentage, however. It's still less than 300,000km/s. Thats what I mean. Can you tell me the difference between negative mass and imaginary mass? I couldn't find it in Spacetime Physics > > >> >Unanswered question: If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years earth time, > >> >how far back in time do I travel upon return? > > >> It depends upon how much you accelerate away (sublight) from Earth > >> before returning. > > >Lets say I navigate around the star system 1600 lightyears away for, say > >5 years, and return to earth in 2 years earthtime. Is there an equation > >for this? > > Sorry, you just don't understand. It depends upon how much you > accelerate away from Earth before returning. Ah, I see now. Is this in Spacetime Physics? > I won't go through > all the calculations, because you won't understand them. Not > without drawings of space-time diagrams, at least, which really > can't be drawn in ASCII. Jay Hinson's FAQ on relativity and FTL > does a noble attempt at it (he regularly posts it on rec.arts.sf. > startrek.tech and rec.arts.sf.science less regularly). How can I get on one of these newsgroups? > > >Question: How do we know time runs backwards in FTL? Then again, how do > >we know time runs forward here... > > The problems with FTL causing causality problems have nothing at all > to do with time "running backwards" in FTL. It only has to do with > stuff in STL frames of reference. A naive calculation of time > dilation with FTL frames of reference would show time running in > an _imaginary_ direction. Strange? Yes. But it's because this > naive use of the formula for time dilation isn't valid for FTL > frames of reference. > > Like I said before, you'd have real difficulty getting an atom, > much less an entire clock, to exist in an FTL frame of reference. From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 30 15:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["340" "Sat" "30" "August" "1997" "16:05:50" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "14" "starship-design: (no subject)" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil "starship-design: (no subject)" nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA04758 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 15:06:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA04731 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 15:05:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-71.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-92.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.92]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA23830 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 18:05:58 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <3408A74E.5522@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 339 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: (no subject) Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 16:05:50 -0700 Greetings: Why would FTL be allowed in a hyperbolic universe better than in a convex one? Why do we think our universe is convex (or was it hyperbolic?)? Why does general relativity accept FTL better than special relativity? Kyle P.S.: Tried to find the answers on my own, but couldn't. I'm not suggesting that we design an FTL ship. From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 30 15:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["485" "Sat" "30" "August" "1997" "17:13:55" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "15" "RE: starship-design: One more try..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil "starship-design: One more try..." nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA11432 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 15:40:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA11378 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 15:40:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p11.gnt.com [204.49.68.216]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA15851 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:40:16 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:40:11 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCB56B.C3E7AE80.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 13 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 484 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: One more try... Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:13:55 -0500 Isaac, > Wrong, to say B isn't possible because D isn't is the same thing > as saying the square root of -9 isn't possible because the square > root of -1 isn't possible. It's skipping a lot of steps, but the > two situations _are_ basically the same. As I said, I wasn't disagreeing with his conclusion, just his method. I stand by my analysis of the arguement however, at least I got the signs correct, yours doesn't even match what he said (even though it may be true). Lee From owner-starship-design Sat Aug 30 17:03 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["293" "Sat" "30" "August" "1997" "20:02:41" "-0400" "Nick Tosh" "101765.2200@compuserve.com" nil "7" "starship-design: Cancelling subscription" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil "starship-design: Cancelling subscription" nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA24493 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:03:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dub-img-6.compuserve.com (dub-img-6.compuserve.com [149.174.206.136]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA24466 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:03:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from mailgate@localhost) by dub-img-6.compuserve.com (8.8.6/8.8.6/2.5) id UAA00235 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 20:02:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <199708302002_MC2-1EA6-B50F@compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by darkwing.uoregon.edu id RAA24485 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Nick Tosh <101765.2200@compuserve.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 292 From: Nick Tosh <101765.2200@compuserve.com> Sender: owner-starship-design To: SD Subject: starship-design: Cancelling subscription Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 20:02:41 -0400 Hi everyone- Sorry, I haven't had time top contribute at all for the last few months, nor am I likely to in the near future (I'm starting University in a few weeks). How do I cancel my subscription to the mail list (I'd keep it, but regularly end up with over 100 messages to deal with...) From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 31 13:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["17181" "Sun" "31" "August" "1997" "16:30:12" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "376" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA19825 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 13:30:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout17.mail.aol.com (emout17.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.43]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA19771 for ; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 13:30:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout17.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id QAA01265; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 16:30:12 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970831163009_349259214@emout17.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 17180 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 16:30:12 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/29/97 5:08:31 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/22/97 1:51:40 PM, you wrote: > >>>I feel like I'm talking in circles, constantly having to repeat the same >>>things to the same responces. We already went over this at the start of >>>this pellet track discussion. > >>I think the problem I'm having is a lot of your pellate track idea is >>self-contradictory, and by the time you mention some parts, I've forgotten >>others from previous posts. > >I haven't said anything self-contradictory. You just infer nonsensical >things. > >>>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>>In a message dated 8/19/97 11:21:57 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >>>>wrote: > >>>>>Do I have to repeat myself? > >>>>>The pellet shooters are installed on the fuel packets. > >>>>>The fuel packets are accelerated to relativistic velocities >>>>>with constant course corrections during the acceleration >>>>>run so that they arrive near the target system with an error of >>>>>10km or less. > >>Neat trick for an automated probe. The way you phrased this is sounds like >>you stop in the star system. I'm assuming you actually mean fly through the >>star system? > >Here's an example. Where does my wording imply anything about >stopping? If I say I fire a bunch of machine gun bullets at a Teddy >Bear 500m away with an error of 50cm, does that imply in any way >that I mean the bullets to stop when they arrive? > >Sure, I _might_ mean that the bullets are supposed to decelerate >themselves near the target Teddy Bear, but since I don't explicitely >mention this difficult to accomplish task, why assume? > >I find this particular point annoying, because right from my very >first e-mail, I explicitely described the concept of the >deceleration track moving at relativistic speeds catching up with >the starship, and from you very first responce you mentionned >the problem of these things slamming into the ship, destroying it. In the above statement I was refuring to said: "they arrive near the target system with an error of10km or less." Normally people distinguish between ariving at a place, with flying through it. I.E. when you say you arrive at a gas station. People assume you stoped their, as apposed to saying you passed a gas station. As to the secound part you refure to the ship as a ramscoop. Ramscoops, or any kind of scoop, scoops up material as it over takes it. Like the intake scoops for a jet engine. In your case the ship would be catching the fuel as it hits it from behind. But using the scoop term confused it. Also since the ship would be decelerating in the deceleration track. At some point it will be going at minimal speed, geting impacted at fuel still going at high relatavistic speed. The ships motors will have to accelerate backwards hard enough to not just slow down the ship, but do it against the heavy rear impact energy from the fuel. Given that the exaust velocity of fusion particals doesn't usually seem to be at that kind of speed. That could pos a problem. Also of course, catching a heavy fuel stream (10's to 100's of tons per hour?) going at up to .5c relative to the ship. Will be very chalenging to the rear catcher structure and fields. If any blows through without being completly caught. It would rip the ship to shreads. >>>Oh NO! Not this again! This is how it all started in the first place! > >>>1. The advantage over integrating the fuel in the ship is that you >>> can spread the launch of the fuel packets over a long period of >>> time. My example before was how a .5 cruising starship to Bernard's >>> Star could have the deceleration track fuel packet drones launched >>> over a period of 3 years (starting after the starship's acceleration >>> run--all resources prior to launch are devoted to the acceleration >>> run and its track). > >>Not really. If the fuel launchers are to be able to fire the fuel into the >>following starship, they can't be to far ahead of it, or going at a radically >>different speed. > >Oh NO! Not this again! Get this notion straight--the fuel launchers >and fuel pellets are going to have very high relative velocity with >the starship (once it makes headway in the deceleration run--just like >the acceleration run, the pellets at the start aren't moving with much >relative speed). > >>They can't just drop the fuel in their wake, even assuming >>the following ship could follow in that exact track. The fuel would drift >>away over a period of time from interstellar effects, or be blasted out of >>the way from the fuel tankers drive beam or nav thrusters. (you did mention >>the tankers are in powered, course correcting, flight.) > >Get this straight. The fuel packet drones have their course >corrections during their acceleration run, and this is sufficient >to acheive an accuracy of 10km or better (I analyzed this before >assuming the target system of Bernard's Star about 6 LY away). I >did not explicitly explain that the packet drones don't make >course corrections during the cruising run, because: > >1. It wasn't necessary. Course corrections during the acceleration > run (accomplished by using the accelerating RPB and varying the > magnetic field of the magsail) were enough to acheive the desired > accuracy of 10km. (The pellets which are shot have to be able to > hit an area the size of the starship's ramscoop at 10km.) > >2. I would have had to explain about the extra overhead involved > in built in thrusters not being worth it. > >3. I would have had to explain about the fact that although the > pellet shooter itself could be used as a rocket thruster, it > has a pathetically low Isp (1km muzzle velocity is merely 100sec > Isp). > >The fuel pellets aren't fired until a short time before reaching >the deceleration track's position. Why? To make those >interstellar effects irrelevant. You agree that interstellar effects could cause the fuel stream to drift of course, but assume they would have no effect on the fuel tankers? My mistake. I assumed you'ld realize eiather would be subject to interstellar forces that would probably disrup their course. >>>2. There is no intention to slow the pellet launchers at the star >>> system. There never was, there never will be. Anything that >>> could have slowed down the pellet launchers would work just as >>> well for the starship. > >>Then the pellats will have to be fired at the rear of the ship. For >>collection in rear scoops. An done befor the ship is passed by the tankers. > >Oh NO! Not this again! How many times do I have to explicitly >repeat that the ship turns around 180 degrees for the deceleration >run? > >How many times do I have to explain how the deceleration run is, >as far as the starship is concerned, almost identical to the >acceleration run? How many times do I have to repeat that the >starship turns around 180 degrees for the deceleration run? > >How many times do I have to repeat that the starship turns around >180 degrees for the deceleration run? > >How many times do I have to repeat that the fuel pellets travel >at a high relative speed to the starship (once it has made significant >progress in the acceleration or deceleration run)? > >How many times do I have to repeat that the acceleration run and >deceleration run are essentially identical as far as the starship >is concerned? In both cases, the pellet track starts off at a >relatively slow speed w.r.t. the ship, and ends up at around .5c >w.r.t. the ship. > >How many times do I have to repeat that the starship turns around >180 degrees for the deceleration run? > >How many times do I have to repeat that the deceleration track is >travelling at relativistic speeds w.r.t the target star system? If you turn the ship around. Then the frount effectivly becomes the rear. >>>3. The pellets fired from the pellet launchers will indeed be moving >>> fast compared to the starship. > >>>4. There aren't any high speed physical impacts. Remember the whole >>> discussion of how the magnetic fields of the magscoop conservatively >>> accelerates the incoming plasma? > >>>5. The high speed of the pellets is an inherent part of the ramjet, >>> in that it provides the energy to compress the pellet's plasma >>> to initiate fusion. > >>>6. There is an advantage to the ramjet over a normal rocket in that >>> its propellant requirements grow more gently than a rocket does, >>> when the desired delta-v is much greater than the Isp * gee. > >>>>>>No the energy would be released in the scoop system ahead of the ship. > >>>>>This is just fine. The energy is still in increased kinetic energy >>>>>of the particles, which are still funnelled along the magnetic lines >>>>>of the ramscoop. It will still be turned into extra forward thrust >>>>>when the magnetic nozzle directs those products rearward. > >>>>>You have to look at this in terms of the inertial frame of the >>>>>starship, because that is where the magnetic field of the ramjet >>>>>are conservative. > >>>>Exactly. Fuel impacts frount of ship. That thrust pushes backwards on the >>>>ship through the magnetic fields. Unless the later fields accelerate the >>>>fuel backward, you have a negative thrust. > >>>This is exactly what the magnetic nozzle does. But how can it do so >>>if it inputs no energy into the plasma, you ask? Because the ramscoop >>>didn't remove energy from the plasma in the first place. Magnetic >>>fields are conservative. > >>>Like I said, you have to look at in terms of the inertial frame of the >>>ship. If you don't, then it's a lot more complicated because of the >>>changing (moving) magnetic fields, which aren't conservative. > >>>A bit of plasma enters the viscinity of the starship in the "backwards" >>>direction with a certain speed V. That means it starts off with a >>>kinetic energy of 1/2 V*V*M (M is mass of the bit of plasma). > >>>Somewhere--it doesn't really matter where--the kinetic energy is >>>increased to some higher value due to fusion. This kinetic energy >>>will be 1/2 S*S*M, where S is a certain value greater than V. > >>>The bit of plasma will leave the viscinity of the starship with >>>kinetic energy of 1/2 S*S*M, because the only forces acting on >>>it are from the fixed magnetic field, which is conservative. >>>Thus, it will leave with a speed of S. The only question is, >>>in what direction? Assuming none of the fusion products escape >>>out the front (because their speed overcame their incoming ramming >>>speed), they are moving almost straight backwards, because of the >>>magnetic nozzle. > >>>So afterward, we have a bit of plasma which is moving backward >>>with velocity S, greater than the initial speed V. That means >>>that the momentum of the bit of plasma has changed in the >>>backward direction. > >>>But wait--there's conservation of momentum! In a closed system >>>(the ship + the pellet), there can't be any overall change in >>>momentum. We know the pellet has a change in momentum in >>>the backward direction. That means _something_ has a change >>>in momentum in the forward direction. The only other thing >>>out there is the ship. > >>>Therefore, there is a forward change in momentum in the ship. > >>Your mising the fact that this doesn't happen at once. Collecting the >>fuel as you run over it subjects the scoop system to a serious reward >>thrust as he scoop tries to diver the fuel into the engine. This load >>must be supported by the scoop fields. > >I'm aware of this. Which is why I explicitly explained that the >magnetic nozzle is what provides the forward thrust. In order >to calculate which effect is greater, you need only consider >what effect they have on the momentum of the pellet--the ship >will necessarily experience an opposite momentum change. Good we agree. >>If the fuel is successfully funneled into the engine. > >We understand how to manipulate plasma with magnetic fields >well enough to do this. Tons of it impacting at up to .5c? All being scooped up with an extreamly large, light structure extending over miles, which is trying to catch this fuel stream magnetically almost instently. This implies extreamly high g loads on the fuel stream, and similar structural and thrust loads on the ship. >>The engine can then try to fues it before it blast out the >>rear of the ship. After it fuses. > >You can't have it both ways. First you _insist_ that it will >fuse before even entering the scoop. Now you question whether >it even has time to fuse. If you try to scoop it up, the fuel will be subjected to very high thrusts and acceleration/deceleration rates in the intake scoops. That would probably lead to fusion in the intake structure. If you assume, as you seem to, that the fuel is scooped up without altering its velovity much (a very neat trick) then it would be flowing thrugh the engine systems at about 150,000,000 m/s. Assuming a 1 kilometer long engine. You have 1/150,000th of a secound to fuse, and get thrust from your fuel stream. >Anyway, I did already explain how the fusion cross section >increases linearly with the rate of compression, and how >the rate of compression in this design is proportional to >the speed of the incoming pellets. The time allowed to >fuse with sufficient yield is, of course, also proportional >to the speed of the incoming pellets. If this thing works >at any speed, it will work at high speed. As I remember nuclear interactions take a finite amout of time. Even assuming the fuel instently started to fuse, it would still take a finite amount of time for the fusion reaction to happen. After that the fusion reaction would trigger the resulting particals (we've been assuming anti-nutronic fuels that release all fusion energy as fission products). These particals travel at far less then .5c (off hand I think about 1/10th that) so the resulting expansion would be a rearward 10 to 1 cone. Unless you can interatct with this to provide forward thrust (and I'm not sure how) and can do it rapidly, you don't get thrust. >>Also since the closing velocity is up to .5 C, and the scoop fields arn't >>thousands of kilometers deep, it is going to be like hitting a magnetic wall. > >Make up your mind. Will the pellet fuse in time or will it not? >If so, then remember that magnetic fields apply conservative forces, >and this extra energy will _still_ produce thrust even though the >fusing takes place ahead of the ship. How? The mag field cant accelerate the fusion particals rearward. Its configured to try to bounce them inward toward the engine (and not let them blast the ship). Since the fusion particals released in the scoop can't be accelerated rearward, and are being accelerated forward and inward by the scoop, the ship gets a rearward thrust, and a hell of a power drain from the forward scoops. (if the ships reversed for a deceleration burn it will be thrown forward.) You seem to assume that the magnatized fuel stream wil follow the magnetic lines of firce into the engine system without being subjected to the velocity changes nessisary to alter its direction. I.E. violating conservation of momentum. >>>The yeilds would be fantastic--if we could inject solid fuel pellets >>>at relativistic speeds on the ground into a reactor, we'd get awesome >>>fusion yeilds. Unfortunately, that requires getting those solid >>>fuel pellets to relativistic speeds in the first place, something >>>which is probably impossible in practice, and it also requires an >>>efficient way to tap energy from the resulting reaction (otherwise, >>>you lose a good fraction of the energy used to accelerate the >>>pellet in the first place). > >>It takes power to compress those pellets that fast in the magnetic scoop. > >Yes, but the power is entirely from the speed of the incoming >pellets. The magnetic scoop, being superconducting, does not require >energy to maintain its magnetic field. The pellets, OTOH, see a >different thing. They see a changing magnetic field (because to >them, the magnetic field is moving at high speed toward them). >As they pass through the "bottleneck", it looks to them like the >magnetic field lines got compressed. No, it still takes power for the magnetic field to shove the fuel stream inward toward the center of the reaction zone. That power needs to be suplied by ships systems, and needs to be restrained by the ships engines and scoop structures. >> Also fusion reactions don't happen instently. Even after the particals are >>fused, even if every partical in the fuel stream is shoved together >>instently, it takes a finite time for the particals to fuse, shuffel neclear >>particals, and then throw the resulting fussion particals outward. By then >>these particals could be well past the ship. > >The speed of fusion is dependant upon the fusion cross section. The >higher the cross section, the faster the fusing. See above. The particals will initiate fusion faster, I.E. more of them will start fusing sooner. But it still takes time for atoms to interact and fuse together. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 31 15:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4211" "Sun" "31" "August" "1997" "17:35:08" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "86" "Re: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA11143 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 15:34:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA11107 for ; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 15:34:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA26046; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 17:35:09 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708312235.AA26046@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970830145958_566986060@emout19.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 30, 97 02:59:59 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4210 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 17:35:08 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/27/97 10:37:05 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu wrote: >>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>In a message dated 8/23/97 12:37:20 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >>>wrote: >>>>Actually, a fusion plant only has to compete with fission plants to >>>>acheive great profit potential. The initial and running costs for >>>>motive fission plants are so great that they're now restricted to >>>>aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The running costs for any >>>>practical fusion plant would be much less than fission or conventional, >>>>so that just leaves initial cost--including R&D. >>>Actually the weight of the power plants reduces them to fairly large craft. >>Huh? Nuclear power plants have been operated on _aircraft_ >>(research into a nuclear powered bomber included actual flights >>of a conventionally propelled bomber with a nuclear power plant >>operated on board). They are light and small enough to potentially >>be used on smaller ships, but they are expensive. >Not a power plant with the power to drive an aircraft or ship. The nuclear >airplane research program caried A power plant, but not one that could power >it, much less one that was SHEILDED. Surface area rules are nasty to small >nukes. The one which they carried did operate, and was deemed sufficient to perform research on safety issues as well as generally demonstrating the technology. More powerful small nuclear power plants have since been developed (for instance, research into particle bed reactors have led to 300/1 thrust/weight ratio solid core rocket engines). >About the only small nuclear ship was the Savana. She ran well, but the >reactors weight cut into her cargo capacity, and long shorman refused to >unload her. Some ports refused her entry. Probably the most important small nuclear powered vessel is the USN's NR1, the world's smallest nuclear submarine. Even though it's only 44.4m long and 336 tons submerged, it is a fully operational nuclear powered submarine with a nominal endurance of 210 man-days. This thing is actually used by civilian researchers (with USN crew running the boat) for things like searching for the wreckage of Brittanica and mapping coral reefs. I think it was used to search for TWA 800 wreckage, but I don't recall specifically. Seeing as civilians are allowed to use her regularly, I'd say she's a safe, seaworthy vessel that isn't spraying its crew members with deathly radiation. >>> Legal restrictions complicated their use so the navy does use them on all >>>large ships. >>Mostly, however, they are expensive. Otherwise, the USN would find >>a way to go all nuclear. Thanks to the late Admiral Rickover, at >>least our submarine fleet is all nuclear. >Life cycle wise nukes aren't as expensive then conventional plants. Not that >thats much of an argument for DOD contracts. Really? I doubt that. If nukes were less expensive, we would already see at least some civilian nuclear cargo ships--even if the cost savings were long term. The DoD may not be financially shrewd, but international corporations tend to be. As a point of fact, there have indeed been many civilian proposals for nuclear cargo vessels, nuclear ocean liners, and even nuclear oil tanker submarine (to, among other things, shuttle underneath the Arctic). However, none of these proposals have gotten anywhere. Large ocean going ships are very fuel efficient, for the payload mass. >Subs need the air free nature, and Carriers need to stay clear of ports (and >would burn non-nuke fuel at a tremendous rate). Huh? Carriers _do_ burn non-nuke fuel at a tremendous rate--the majority of carriers in service today are non-nuclear. How do they stay clear of ports in wartime? The same way as the rest of her fleet, by refueling at sea from tankers. However, nuclear carriers have an edge in that they have a lot more space for aviation fuel and munitions, more free deck space, and landing on them is a bit easier. Such a pity they're so expensive. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 31 15:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["928" "Sun" "31" "August" "1997" "17:37:26" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: One more try..." "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA11336 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 15:36:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA11326 for ; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 15:36:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA26303; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 17:37:27 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708312237.AA26303@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <01BCB56B.C3E7AE80.lparker@cacaphony.net> from "L. Parker" at Aug 30, 97 05:13:55 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 927 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: One more try... Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 17:37:26 -0500 (CDT) L. Parker wrote: >Isaac, >> Wrong, to say B isn't possible because D isn't is the same thing >> as saying the square root of -9 isn't possible because the square >> root of -1 isn't possible. It's skipping a lot of steps, but the >> two situations _are_ basically the same. >As I said, I wasn't disagreeing with his conclusion, just his method. I >stand by my analysis of the arguement however, at least I got the signs >correct, yours doesn't even match what he said (even though it may be >true). Umm...I carefully chose those signs to point out the flaw in your example. My point is that as he said, the two situations are basically the same. His only "error" was one of omitting all the intermediate steps that demonstrate it. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 31 15:54 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3095" "Sun" "31" "August" "1997" "17:55:51" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "72" "Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA14700 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 15:54:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA14689 for ; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 15:54:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA28167; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 17:55:52 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708312255.AA28167@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <3408A688.6F39@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 30, 97 04:02:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3094 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: FTL and time travel Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 17:55:51 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Can you tell me the difference between negative mass >and imaginary mass? I couldn't find it in Spacetime Physics First off, the very basics: are you familiar with complex numbers and mathematics with complex numbers? If not, then you won't be able to grasp the notion of imaginary numbers. Suffice it to say that you need to learn about complex numbers first (it's interesting stuff), and that in the meantime realize that imaginary numbers are not "real" (umm...there's no way to say that without it being a pun). >> Sorry, you just don't understand. It depends upon how much you >> accelerate away from Earth before returning. >Ah, I see now. Is this in Spacetime Physics? I'm not familiar with that reference, unfortunately. >> I won't go through >> all the calculations, because you won't understand them. Not >> without drawings of space-time diagrams, at least, which really >> can't be drawn in ASCII. Jay Hinson's FAQ on relativity and FTL >> does a noble attempt at it (he regularly posts it on rec.arts.sf. >> startrek.tech and rec.arts.sf.science less regularly). >How can I get on one of these newsgroups? The flippant answer is that you can either use a newsreader or read "usenet" via www.altavista.com or www.dejanews.com (highly undesireable on a regular basis). A more helpful answer would depend upon what sort of internet access you have. First off, assuming you have a web browser, a search in www.altavista.com (searching "usenet") or in www.dejanews.com (which only searches usenet) should find Jay Hinson's FAQ on relativity and FTL pretty easily. In fact, you'll want to search Usenet for other topics--often the pages you find will be more informative than trying to search the web. Secondly, assuming you use your web browser to read e-mail, simply activate the "news" window, and you should be given an interface to read usenet netnews which is a bit like the e-mail reader. Third, if you are using a Unix shell account to access the Internet, you may be stuck with using a text newsreader, like "trn" or "tin". Try typing "trn" or "rn" at the command line. If you're lucky, "trn" will already be installed on your system. The bad news is that it's a text based reader, and you'll have to learn keyboard commands. The good news is that "trn" is the most powerful newsreader around, is easy to learn (just remember to press "space" when you want it to automatically guess what the best next thing to do is, or press "h" when you want to know what your other options are), and is simply a lot faster and pleasant to use in the long run than Netscape or any other web browser. (Actually, that's bad news. Why can't anyone make a graphical news reader as fast and powerful as trn?) Anyway, I'm sure you'll find searching Usenet netnews to be interesting and informative, at least. Just remember to beware of anything you read! -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 31 16:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1355" "Sun" "31" "August" "1997" "18:03:28" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "37" "Re: starship-design: (no subject)" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA15541 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 16:02:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA15496 for ; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 16:02:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA28929; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 18:03:29 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708312303.AA28929@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <3408A74E.5522@sunherald.infi.net> from "Kyle R. Mcallister" at Aug 30, 97 04:05:50 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1354 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: starship-design: (no subject) Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 18:03:28 -0500 (CDT) Kyle R. Mcallister wrote: >Why would FTL be allowed in a hyperbolic universe better than in a >convex one? Because in a hyperbolic universe, space-time is expanding at an accelerating rate, making it impossible to return to your past point of origin even if you go FTL (the more hyperbolic, the faster FTL is allowed). >Why do we think our universe is convex (or was it hyperbolic?)? Because we think there is an average positive energy density in the universe. The attractive force of gravity from positive energy (e.g. normal matter) indicates that space-time is "curving inwards" upon itself. >Why does general relativity accept FTL better than special relativity? Because it allows for curved spacetime, which can potentially allow global behaviors very unlike the local behavior. As an analogy, imagine the difference between walking on the surface of a sphere and walking on the surface of an infinite flat plane. In the former case, you can walk in one direction and eventually end up where you began. Can't be done in the latter case. >Kyle >P.S.: Tried to find the answers on my own, but couldn't. I'm not >suggesting that we design an FTL ship. -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Sun Aug 31 16:45 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["11090" "Sun" "31" "August" "1997" "18:46:34" "-0500" "Isaac Kuo" "kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu" nil "230" "Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke" "^From:" nil nil "8" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA22495 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 16:45:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bit.csc.lsu.edu (bit.csc.lsu.edu [130.39.130.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA22478 for ; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 16:45:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: by bit.csc.lsu.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA03309; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 18:46:35 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <9708312346.AA03309@bit.csc.lsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <970831163009_349259214@emout17.mail.aol.com> from "KellySt@aol.com" at Aug 31, 97 04:30:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 11089 From: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu (Starship list) Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet tracke Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 18:46:34 -0500 (CDT) KellySt@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 8/29/97 5:08:31 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) wrote: >>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>In a message dated 8/22/97 1:51:40 PM, you wrote: >>>>I feel like I'm talking in circles, constantly having to repeat the same >>>>things to the same responces. We already went over this at the start of >>>>this pellet track discussion. [snip] >>I find this particular point annoying, because right from my very >>first e-mail, I explicitely described the concept of the >>deceleration track moving at relativistic speeds catching up with >>the starship, and from you very first responce you mentionned >>the problem of these things slamming into the ship, destroying it. >In the above statement I was refuring to said: "they arrive near the target >system with an error of10km or less." Normally people distinguish between >ariving at a place, with flying through it. I.E. when you say you arrive at >a gas station. People assume you stoped their, as apposed to saying you >passed a gas station. This is a bad assumption to make, especially in this situation. What if I had said, "they fly through the target system with an error of 10km or less"? And then talked about how they shot pellets into a pellet track? I suppose you'd pose the question of how this pellet track is supposed to help decelerate the starship if the pellet shooters have already flown past the target system. Could you try and pay attention and stick to what I actually write, rather than set up the same straw men over and over again based on your inappropriate assumptions? >As to the secound part you refure to the ship as a ramscoop. Ramscoops, or >any kind of scoop, scoops up material as it over takes it. Like the intake >scoops for a jet engine. In your case the ship would be catching the fuel as >it hits it from behind. But using the scoop term confused it. Umm...what would you call a "scoop" which scoops up material which is being shot into it? I've repeated many times about the ship turning around 180 degrees to scoop up pellets as they "catch up" with the ship. How many times do I have to repeat it? >Also since the ship would be decelerating in the deceleration track. At some >point it will be going at minimal speed, geting impacted at fuel still going >at high relatavistic speed. And how many times do I have to repeat _this_, and how it is, as far as the starship is concerned, _identical_ to the situation with the acceleration track? Let me try and repeat this again, in simple terms: 1. The acceleration track is essentially moving at speed 0. The starship starts off at around speed 0, so initially it is scooping up pellets at a low relative speed. As it accelerates along the acceleration track, its speed goes up while the speed of the pellets in the track stays at 0. The relative speed of the pellets steadily goes up until it reaches .5c, the cruise velocity of the starship. 2. The deceleration track is essentially moving at speed .5c. The starship starts off at around speed .5c, so initially it is scooping up pellets at a low relative speed. As it accelerates along the deceleration track, its speed goes down while the speed of the pellets in the track stays at .5c. The relative speed of the pellets steadily goes up until it reaches .5c. >Also of course, catching a heavy fuel stream (10's to 100's of tons per >hour?) going at up to .5c relative to the ship. Will be very chalenging to >the rear catcher structure and fields. If any blows through without being >completly caught. It would rip the ship to shreads. Are you doing this on purpose, just to annoy me? I'm beginning to think you understand perfectly what I'm trying to say, but for some perverse reason you're pretending to misunderstand just to be difficult. Later on in my post, I repeat many many many times that the ship turns around 180 degrees. If you forget or pretend to forget this simple little statement once more, I'll simply ignore your e-mail messages forever. >>Get this straight. The fuel packet drones have their course >>corrections during their acceleration run, and this is sufficient >>to acheive an accuracy of 10km or better (I analyzed this before >>assuming the target system of Bernard's Star about 6 LY away). I >>did not explicitly explain that the packet drones don't make >>course corrections during the cruising run, because: >>1. It wasn't necessary. Course corrections during the acceleration >> run (accomplished by using the accelerating RPB and varying the >> magnetic field of the magsail) were enough to acheive the desired >> accuracy of 10km. (The pellets which are shot have to be able to >> hit an area the size of the starship's ramscoop at 10km.) >>2. I would have had to explain about the extra overhead involved >> in built in thrusters not being worth it. >>3. I would have had to explain about the fact that although the >> pellet shooter itself could be used as a rocket thruster, it >> has a pathetically low Isp (1km muzzle velocity is merely 100sec >> Isp). >>The fuel pellets aren't fired until a short time before reaching >>the deceleration track's position. Why? To make those >>interstellar effects irrelevant. >You agree that interstellar effects could cause the fuel stream to drift of >course, but assume they would have no effect on the fuel tankers? My >mistake. I assumed you'ld realize eiather would be subject to interstellar >forces that would probably disrup their course. Both are subject to interstellar forces, but the massier fuel packet drones will be influenced much less. The biggest problem is magnetic fields, since they extend so far into interstellar space. Any fuel pellets will inevitably have a small non-neutral charge, which would result in magnetic fields affecting their course slightly. For relatively heavy fuel packet drones, this effect could easily be insignificant. >>>Then the pellats will have to be fired at the rear of the ship. For >>>collection in rear scoops. An done befor the ship is passed by the >tankers. >If you turn the ship around. Then the frount effectivly becomes the rear. If you really understand what I'm saying, why talk about "rear scoops" at all? There's only one ramscoop--it's the same one used during the acceleration run. >>I'm aware of this. Which is why I explicitly explained that the >>magnetic nozzle is what provides the forward thrust. In order >>to calculate which effect is greater, you need only consider >>what effect they have on the momentum of the pellet--the ship >>will necessarily experience an opposite momentum change. >Good we agree. >>>If the fuel is successfully funneled into the engine. >>We understand how to manipulate plasma with magnetic fields >>well enough to do this. >Tons of it impacting at up to .5c? All being scooped up with an extreamly >large, light structure extending over miles, which is trying to catch this >fuel stream magnetically almost instently. This implies extreamly high g >loads on the fuel stream, and similar structural and thrust loads on the >ship. It's not impacting all at once (I posted before a reasonable mass rate) for a 1km long ship (not even 1 mile long) weighing 1000 tons (not exactly lightweight). Yes, it's beyond anything we're doing today, but that's because we don't have any way to create a very heavy stream at .5c. That doesn't mean the powerful magnetic fields in today's research fusion reactors couldn't handle them. >>Anyway, I did already explain how the fusion cross section >>increases linearly with the rate of compression, and how >>the rate of compression in this design is proportional to >>the speed of the incoming pellets. The time allowed to >>fuse with sufficient yield is, of course, also proportional >>to the speed of the incoming pellets. If this thing works >>at any speed, it will work at high speed. >As I remember nuclear interactions take a finite amout of time. Even >assuming the fuel instently started to fuse, it would still take a finite >amount of time for the fusion reaction to happen. After that the fusion >reaction would trigger the resulting particals (we've been assuming >anti-nutronic fuels that release all fusion energy as fission products). > These particals travel at far less then .5c (off hand I think about 1/10th >that) so the resulting expansion would be a rearward 10 to 1 cone. Unless >you can interatct with this to provide forward thrust (and I'm not sure how) >and can do it rapidly, you don't get thrust. The interaction is provided by the magnetic nozzle, which takes the off center paths of the particles and bends them so that they leave the starship straight rearward (in the starship's frame of reference). >How? The mag field cant accelerate the fusion particals rearward. Yes they can. In the starship's frame of reference (where the magnetic field is fixed), the magnetic field is conservative--meaning that it can bend the direction of a particle's motion, but can't add or remove from it speed. However, that does mean it can bend the motion of a particle moving at an angle other than directly rearward to a straight rearward path. That _is_ accelerating it rearward (as well as sideways). >You seem to assume that the magnatized fuel stream wil follow the magnetic >lines of firce into the engine system without being subjected to the velocity >changes nessisary to alter its direction. I.E. violating conservation of >momentum. There will be _velocity_ changes, but not speed changes. Actually, the apparent speed of a particle macroscopically will look as if it has been slowed down a little, whereas in reality it's taking a helical path around a magnetic field line at its original speed. >>Yes, but the power is entirely from the speed of the incoming >>pellets. The magnetic scoop, being superconducting, does not require >>energy to maintain its magnetic field. The pellets, OTOH, see a >>different thing. They see a changing magnetic field (because to >>them, the magnetic field is moving at high speed toward them). >>As they pass through the "bottleneck", it looks to them like the >>magnetic field lines got compressed. >No, it still takes power for the magnetic field to shove the fuel stream >inward toward the center of the reaction zone. That power needs to be >suplied by ships systems, and needs to be restrained by the ships engines and >scoop structures. No it doesn't. The magnetic field is being generated by superconductors, which don't require any input of energy to maintain their (fixed) magnetic field. The pellets see a changing magnetic field because they are moving w.r.t. it. Where is the energy coming from, then, if it's not coming from the ship? It's coming from the kinetic energy of the pellets (in the frame of reference of the starship). -- _____ Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo __|_)o(_|__ /___________\ "Mari-san... Yokatta... \=\)-----(/=/ ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 1 10:39 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1150" "Mon" "1" "September" "1997" "19:38:46" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "27" "starship-design: FTL understood" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA07496 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 10:39:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA07475 for ; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 10:39:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-023.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x5aRs-000K7rC; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 19:39:36 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1149 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: FTL understood Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 19:38:46 +0100 To all, but especially Isaac and Steve, I'd like to thank you for the help you gave me for a closer understanding of relativity. Although you couldn't help me all the way through using Email, you took me just that little bit further so that I could help myself. The last week I've been quiet on SD due to a busy week, but also because I spent time to work on that closer understanding about relativity (combined with FTL). It's hard to describe what exactly pulled me over the hill, but I think that studying space-time diagrams has given me the most satisfying insight. After having played with these space-time diagrams and having thought long and hard about several implications, I indeed can see that sending signals back in time may be possible when FTL is possible. A ship that can travel FTL (and that can travel at sublight speed no matter how slow) can travel both anytime and anyplace. Whether this will cause a paradoxes will depend on how one believes that past, present and future are linked. Even today there are already many theories of how these three are linked and likely their number will increase as time goes on. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 1 15:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2672" "Tue" "2" "September" "1997" "00:33:36" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "56" "starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA05412 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 15:33:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA05388 for ; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 15:33:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-012.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x5f3A-000FLRC; Tue, 2 Sep 1997 00:34:24 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2671 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 00:33:36 +0100 Kelly, In a letter to Isaac you wrote: >>Also since the ship would be decelerating in the deceleration track. At some >>point it will be going at minimal speed, geting impacted at fuel still going >>at high relatavistic speed. The fact that your fuel is moving fast relative to your engine isn't a big problem, as long as you add momentum to the pellet-stream that goes through the ramjet. I think one of the problems in you letters with Isaac is that you assume that the pellet has to be stopped first before it can be fused. And that thus most kinetic energy of the incoming particles is lost. (If this is not the problem, then likely you can neglect the rest of my explanation.) The particles will enter the mouth of the ramjet, which is a giant magnetic funnel that gets smaller the further it goes towards the heart of the ramjet. This funnel pushes the particles towards the central axis of the ramjet. Since they don't like to be in a more convined space, they'll to try to slow down (kinetic energy is transferred to "heat" energy). While slowing down they'll also accelerate the ramjet backwards. (This is the wrong direction for a ramjet!) However they have too much kinetic energy to stop and turn around, so they will fly through the smallest part of the magnetic funnel of the ramjet. If the particles wouldn't fuse, they would expand again in the output nozzle (which also is a magnetic funnel, but now expanding in the direction of the particles movement). The outward expansion of the particle will push against the widening magnetic funnel and accelerate the ramjet forward so that its final velocity is the same as before the pellet entered it. (Pushing against a widening magnetic funnel, is like pushing against a slanting plane: the direction of your push is partly converted into forward motion and partly to sideward motion.) If the particles would fuse they'd become hotter. That means that they do like it even less to be so close together (mass is transferred to "heat" energy). Now that they want to expand even more, they'll push harder against the magnetic funnel of the output nozzle and thus the ramjet will gain more speed than it lost while the pellet entered it. (Also the exhaust velocity will be bigger than you'd expect from a fusion reaction where the particles had no preferred movement just before they fused.) So in the end, even though the particles came in with relativistic velocities, they will come out with an even higher velocity. (Note: several concepts have been simplified a bit, but I believe the general idea is correct.) Timothy P.S. Isaac, if you feel I made a large error, don't hesitate to tell me. From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 1 15:34 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["731" "Tue" "2" "September" "1997" "00:33:34" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "19" "starship-design: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA05508 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 15:34:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA05486 for ; Mon, 1 Sep 1997 15:34:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-012.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x5f37-000F3bC; Tue, 2 Sep 1997 00:34:21 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 730 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Bussard design Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 00:33:34 +0100 Part of the conversation between Kelly and Isaac: >>>>>The geometry for this system is a hollow sphere by the way. >>>> >>>>Huh? A conductive hollow sphere cannot generate an electric >>>>potential gradient inside it. You'd have to inject electrons >>>>into the center in order to attract the (positively charged) >>>>fuel particles to it, and rely on the charge of those electrons >>>>alone to acheive compression. Kelly, Isaac is right about this. Either you or Bussard did conclude something that does not comply with physics. I never really thought about the fact that Isaac mentions, mainly because a charge convined fusion system didn't look much more attractive to me than most other pulsed fusion designs. Timothy From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 3 20:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4516" "Wed" "3" "September" "1997" "23:12:21" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "107" "Re: Re: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA09257 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 20:12:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout05.mail.aol.com (emout05.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.96]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA09201 for ; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 20:12:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout05.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA18166; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 23:12:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970903231014_1060197404@emout05.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4515 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: starship-design: Pellet track Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 23:12:21 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 8/31/97 4:34:24 PM, you wrote: >KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>In a message dated 8/27/97 10:37:05 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu wrote: >>>KellySt@aol.com wrote: >>>>In a message dated 8/23/97 12:37:20 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo) >>>>wrote: > >>>>>Actually, a fusion plant only has to compete with fission plants to >>>>>acheive great profit potential. The initial and running costs for >>>>>motive fission plants are so great that they're now restricted to >>>>>aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The running costs for any >>>>>practical fusion plant would be much less than fission or conventional, >>>>>so that just leaves initial cost--including R&D. > >>>>Actually the weight of the power plants reduces them to fairly large craft. > >>>Huh? Nuclear power plants have been operated on _aircraft_ >>>(research into a nuclear powered bomber included actual flights >>>of a conventionally propelled bomber with a nuclear power plant >>>operated on board). They are light and small enough to potentially >>>be used on smaller ships, but they are expensive. > >>Not a power plant with the power to drive an aircraft or ship. The nuclear >>airplane research program caried A power plant, but not one that could power >>it, much less one that was SHEILDED. Surface area rules are nasty to small >>nukes. > >The one which they carried did operate, and was deemed sufficient to >perform research on safety issues as well as generally demonstrating >the technology. More powerful small nuclear power plants have since >been developed (for instance, research into particle bed reactors >have led to 300/1 thrust/weight ratio solid core rocket engines). Note none of the above include sheilding. >>About the only small nuclear ship was the Savana. She ran well, but the >>reactors weight cut into her cargo capacity, and long shorman refused to >>unload her. Some ports refused her entry. > >Probably the most important small nuclear powered vessel is the USN's >NR1, the world's smallest nuclear submarine. Even though it's only >44.4m long and 336 tons submerged, it is a fully operational nuclear >powered submarine with a nominal endurance of 210 man-days. This thing >is actually used by civilian researchers (with USN crew running the >boat) for things like searching for the wreckage of Brittanica and >mapping coral reefs. I think it was used to search for TWA 800 >wreckage, but I don't recall specifically. > >Seeing as civilians are allowed to use her regularly, I'd say she's >a safe, seaworthy vessel that isn't spraying its crew members with >deathly radiation. She also only has enough power for a 4 knot top speed and has to be towed to her operational areas. >>>> Legal restrictions complicated their use so the navy does use them on all >>>>large ships. > >>>Mostly, however, they are expensive. Otherwise, the USN would find >>>a way to go all nuclear. Thanks to the late Admiral Rickover, at >>>least our submarine fleet is all nuclear. > >>Life cycle wise nukes aren't as expensive then conventional plants. Not that >>thats much of an argument for DOD contracts. > >Really? I doubt that. If nukes were less expensive, we would >already see at least some civilian nuclear cargo ships--even if >the cost savings were long term. -- Covered that above with the Savana. She sailed fine, but carried less cargo and had labor problems. >---The DoD may not be financially >shrewd, but international corporations tend to be. As a point >of fact, there have indeed been many civilian proposals for >nuclear cargo vessels, nuclear ocean liners, and even nuclear >oil tanker submarine (to, among other things, shuttle underneath >the Arctic). However, none of these proposals have gotten anywhere. >Large ocean going ships are very fuel efficient, for the payload mass. > >>Subs need the air free nature, and Carriers need to stay clear of ports (and >>would burn non-nuke fuel at a tremendous rate). > >Huh? Carriers _do_ burn non-nuke fuel at a tremendous rate--the >majority of carriers in service today are non-nuclear. How do they >stay clear of ports in wartime? The same way as the rest of her >fleet, by refueling at sea from tankers. > >However, nuclear carriers have an edge in that they have a lot more >space for aviation fuel and munitions, more free deck space, and >landing on them is a bit easier. Such a pity they're so expensive. To my knowlegde all the US big deck carriers went nuclear years ago. What ones are you refuring to? From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 7 22:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4490" "Mon" "8" "September" "1997" "01:01:47" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "110" "Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA23692 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:02:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout03.mail.aol.com (emout03.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.94]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA23679 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:02:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout03.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id BAA06142; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 01:01:47 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970908010145_227608284@emout03.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4489 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 01:01:47 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/2/97 2:52:44 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Kelly, > >In a letter to Isaac you wrote: > >>>Also since the ship would be decelerating in the deceleration track. At some >>>point it will be going at minimal speed, geting impacted at fuel still going >>>at high relatavistic speed. > >The fact that your fuel is moving fast relative to your engine isn't a big >problem, as long as you add momentum to the pellet-stream that goes through >the ramjet. > >I think one of the problems in you letters with Isaac is that you assume >that the pellet has to be stopped first before it can be fused. And that >thus most kinetic energy of the incoming particles is lost. (If this is not >the problem, then likely you can neglect the rest of my explanation.) I don't assume it must be stoped but I assume: The fuel will be accelerated inward in order to get it into the ships axis quickly, and this will need to be a major delta-v due to the high relative velocity. That this delta -v will heat the fuel and put a major structural and power load on the fields. That particals don't instently fuse when they ram one another. That given the time delays I'ld expect in fusion, and the high relative speed, I'ld worry the fusion won't release usefull energy until its past the ship. Also due to the high relative speed and the comparativly meager exaust velocity, I'm not clear how you can gat any thrust out of the system. >The particles will enter the mouth of the ramjet, which is a giant magnetic >funnel that gets smaller the further it goes towards the heart of the >ramjet. This funnel pushes the particles towards the central axis of the >ramjet. Since they don't like to be in a more convined space, they'll to try >to slow down (kinetic energy is transferred to "heat" energy). While >slowing down they'll also accelerate the ramjet backwards. (This is the >wrong direction for a ramjet!) >However they have too much kinetic energy to stop and turn around, so they >will fly through the smallest part of the magnetic funnel of the ramjet. Agree. >If the particles wouldn't fuse, they would expand again in the output nozzle >(which also is a magnetic funnel, but now expanding in the direction of the >particles movement). The outward expansion of the particle will push against >the widening magnetic funnel and accelerate the ramjet forward so that its >final velocity is the same as before the pellet entered it. (Pushing against >a widening magnetic funnel, is like pushing against a slanting plane: the >direction of your push is partly converted into forward motion and partly to >sideward motion.) I'ld agree with this if it wasn't for the high relative speed. Since the plasma can only expand outward at a certain maximum speed due to internal presure. If the relative angle formed by the lateral velocity of the plasma relative to the 'rearward' velocity of the plasma stream, is shallower then the slat angle of the magnetic exaust nozzel, you won't get any "push against the widening magnetic funnel". I think the relative velocities would give a 1 to 8 to 1 to 15 angle. Pretty hard to use in a magnetiv rocket nozzel. >If the particles would fuse they'd become hotter. That means that they do >like it even less to be so close together (mass is transferred to "heat" >energy). >Now that they want to expand even more, they'll push harder against the >magnetic funnel of the output nozzle and thus the ramjet will gain more >speed than it lost while the pellet entered it. >(Also the exhaust velocity will be bigger than you'd expect from a fusion >reaction where the particles had no preferred movement just before they fused.) The forward thrust is based on several factors that may or may not add up to more forward thrust then rearward drag from the scoop. Not sure what you mean about "(Also the exhaust velocity will be bigger than you'd expect from a fusion reaction where the particles had no preferred movement just before they fused.)". >So in the end, even though the particles came in with relativistic >velocities, they will come out with an even higher velocity. Maybe. Depends if the deceleration during the scooping process is less then the addition from the fuel burn and exaust process. >(Note: several concepts have been simplified a bit, but I believe the >general idea is correct.) > >Timothy > >P.S. Isaac, if you feel I made a large error, don't hesitate to tell me. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 7 22:02 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3669" "Mon" "8" "September" "1997" "01:02:13" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "81" "Re: starship-design: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA23747 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:02:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout08.mail.aol.com (emout08.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.23]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA23728 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:02:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout08.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id BAA17296; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 01:02:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970908010154_153586396@emout08.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3668 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Bussard design Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 01:02:13 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/2/97 2:09:46 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Part of the conversation between Kelly and Isaac: > >>>>>>The geometry for this system is a hollow sphere by the way. >>>>> >>>>>Huh? A conductive hollow sphere cannot generate an electric >>>>>potential gradient inside it. You'd have to inject electrons >>>>>into the center in order to attract the (positively charged) >>>>>fuel particles to it, and rely on the charge of those electrons >>>>>alone to acheive compression. > >Kelly, Isaac is right about this. Either you or Bussard did conclude >something that does not comply with physics. >I never really thought about the fact that Isaac mentions, mainly because a >charge convined fusion system didn't look much more attractive to me than >most other pulsed fusion designs. > >Timothy Hi, back on line. Hey your the physics majors. The central paper descibing the workings of the reactor is: "Some physics Considerations of magnetic Inertial-electrostatic confinement : A new concept for Spherical converging-flow Fusion" Fusion Technology March 91 Synopsis lists it as "A new concept for inertial-electrostatic spherical colloding beam fusion (polywell) is based on the use of magnetohydrodynamically stable quasi-spherical polyhedral magnetic fields to contain energetic electrons that are injected to form a negatice potential well that is capable of ion confinement. It goes on to show how the paper demonstrates that it is grossly stable against internal and external perterbations, small power losses fromselfcollisions Bremsstrahlung and synchrotron radiation, etc.. Sounds like they electrons are injected into the center to act as the negative, to appose the positive charge on the spherical reactor shell. That negative pulls the positive fuel ions in from the outside of the reactor. humm. MOre details in the text mention that the MHD mag field consist of alternating point cusps in a generally spherical geometry. (I.E they occupy the faces of a even numbered polyhedron.) I remember that this was a refinement of previous work by Farnsworth and Hirsch. It mentioned here, that when they stoped work in the late 60's their systems based on this design had acheaved the still current fusion neutron production rates in a steady state system. Anyway its about 18 pages of equations and diagrams that I have trouble following, and refuse to type in. Highlights are comments on translational and recirculating flows, and a slight prolate displacement problem that can induce a local current. However the "..counterstreaming interaction of particals moving through the central region, which couple their momentum to each other through spherical electrostatic waves." --- "vastly exceeds any possible local perterbation". This is a good thing right? ;) It does seem that my description of it as a voltage compression system was wildly off. Sounds more like the voltage and alternating magnetic fields create and acceptably stable and hot core zone for fusion, and that a lot slos hing about and current flow interacts to keep this working nicely. Further people have built versions of things like this, and they seem to work. Comments by other physics types say its a great idea, some say far more promising then current magnetic confinment designs, but funding isn't avalible. Others say it a great idea but largely not Bussards, so he should give more credit to others. Not having any background in high energy physics. I'm assuming from all this that the idea is sound and viable, and being grosely under researched for reasons unrelated to its viability. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 9 03:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1531" "Tue" "9" "September" "1997" "12:25:50" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "36" "Re: starship-design: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA14703 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 03:26:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id DAA14690 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 03:26:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-018.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x8NVL-000Gq3C; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 12:26:43 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1530 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Bussard design Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 12:25:50 +0100 Hi Kelly, >Synopsis lists it as "A new concept for inertial-electrostatic spherical >colloding beam fusion (polywell) is based on the use of >magnetohydrodynamically stable quasi-spherical polyhedral magnetic fields to >contain energetic electrons that are injected to form a negatice potential >well that is capable of ion confinement. ... >Sounds like they electrons are injected into the center to act as the >negative, to appose the positive charge on the spherical reactor shell. That >negative pulls the positive fuel ions in from the outside of the reactor. Indeed, it sounds like they create some magnetic bottle to confine the electrons. I guess that in theory something like this can work. Probably you'd need quite a bunch of electrons per ion to accelerate it upto fusion speeds. If the amount of electrons per ion has to be high, you probably could use the magnetic fields for other fusion designs as well. >Anyway its about 18 pages of equations and diagrams that I have trouble >following, and refuse to type in. Highlights are comments on translational >and recirculating flows, and a slight prolate displacement problem that can >induce a local current. However the "..counterstreaming interaction of >particals moving through the central region, which couple their momentum to >each other through spherical electrostatic waves." --- "vastly exceeds any >possible local perterbation". > >This is a good thing right? ;) Electro"static" waves? I always thought that waves implied "dynamics". Timothy From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 9 15:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["596" "Tue" "9" "September" "1997" "15:20:10" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "16" "RE: starship-design: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA12888 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 15:17:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA12879 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 15:17:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p10.gnt.com [204.49.68.215]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA03773 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:17:17 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:17:18 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBD44.3A134B20.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 14 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 595 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Bussard design Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 15:20:10 -0500 Kelly, All fusion research money in the US is currently being focused on toroidial designs that originate from the Russian Tokamak design. Even though there are SEVERAL other designs that promise better LONG TERM returns, the lure of the near term success of Tokamak designs created by a 20 year head start results in an institutional resistance on the part of the federal government to fund any other research. The problem with the other ideas is that they would take twenty years of research to get to the point that toroidal is today. The powers that be view that as unacceptable. Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 9 15:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["95" "Tue" "9" "September" "1997" "15:04:31" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "7" "starship-design: Nuclear Powered Navy" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA12923 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 15:17:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA12900 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 15:17:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p10.gnt.com [204.49.68.215]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA03764 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:17:12 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:17:11 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBD44.359F7640.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 5 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 94 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Nuclear Powered Navy Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 15:04:31 -0500 Kelly, I did discover that we do have one nuclear powered CRUISER! The USS California. Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 9 17:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1950" "Tue" "9" "September" "1997" "17:00:50" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "36" "starship-design: RE: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA20991 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:00:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA20977 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:00:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA24050; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:00:50 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA25996; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:00:50 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199709100000.RAA25996@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1949 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: RE: Bussard design Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:00:50 -0700 Lee writes: >All fusion research money in the US is currently being focused on toroidial >designs that originate from the Russian Tokamak design. Even though there are >SEVERAL other designs that promise better LONG TERM returns, the lure of the >near term success of Tokamak designs created by a 20 year head start results >in an institutional resistance on the part of the federal government to fund >any other research. You mean all Magnetic fusion research. And even for tokamaks the money is getting cut back too far to make any real headway. With very few exceptions, no new magnetic fusion experiments are being funded, including tokamaks. Even the $10 billion "ignition"-scale ITER is only being "supported" by the DOE, meaning they might pay 5% but don't want it in the country. They're supposedly "looking at alternative options" right now, which sounds promising, but it's basically code for "short on cash". However, there IS money in Inertial Confinement Fusion. And lots of it. The entire fusion energy program gets only about $250 million/year, but more than that will go to the National Ignition Facility (NIF) next year alone -- 192 lasers to make ICF work. The reason: it's relevant to H-bombs, so the money doesn't come out of the paltry alternative energy research budget, but rather the $4 billion "stockpile stewardship" war chest. They'll spend $2 billion over the next 10 years on NIF alone, and lots more on other ICF work elsewhere to make sure it will ignite as planned. They're also starting to build a laser system (code name: Mercury) that can fire high-energy beams ten times a second; important if laser-driven ICF will ever work as a power plant (or starship engine). NIF will fire 2-3 times a day. Still, the most optimistic forecasts have the first laser-driven ICF power plant operational sometime around 2040. Cutting it a little close for this group's 2050 target date... Ken From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 9 17:51 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1036" "Tue" "9" "September" "1997" "17:35:11" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "26" "RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA06185 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:51:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA06149 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:51:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p34.gnt.com [204.49.68.239]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA16355 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:51:39 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:51:34 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBD59.C6D02500.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 24 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1035 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:35:11 -0500 Kelly, Timothy and Isaac, Just a couple of ideas: I haven't really been following this thread very closely so excuse me if I misunderstand or misconstrue... If you have magnetic fields capable of generating enough delta v to grab a fuel pellet moving that fast and drag it toward the axis of the engine (?) in such a limited time, WHY are you bothering to fuse it? It sounds to me like you already have your propulsion - the magnetic field itself. If it can do what you say, then simply accelerate the pellet in the appropriate direction, the heck with trying to fuse it. (HOLD ON TO YOUR PANTS FOR THIS ONE) Second, YOU ONLY NEED ONE PELLET. Actually, more would help, but if you have two ships accelerating in opposite directions they can throw the same pellet(s) back and forth. This perfect for breaking one ship while the other half accelerates for a fly by. Of course this assumes that your catcher field can stop a pellet moving at light speed and then reaccelerate it back to light speed going the other way. Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 9 20:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1678" "Tue" "9" "September" "1997" "23:57:43" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "45" "Re: Re: starship-design: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA14372 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 20:58:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA14360 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 20:58:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA24320; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 23:57:43 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970909235637_146372748@emout12.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1677 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Bussard design Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 23:57:43 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/9/97 4:26:25 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl wrote: >Hi Kelly, > >>Synopsis lists it as "A new concept for inertial-electrostatic spherical >>colloding beam fusion (polywell) is based on the use of >>magnetohydrodynamically stable quasi-spherical polyhedral magnetic fields to >>contain energetic electrons that are injected to form a negatice potential >>well that is capable of ion confinement. > >.... > >>Sounds like they electrons are injected into the center to act as the >>negative, to appose the positive charge on the spherical reactor shell. That >>negative pulls the positive fuel ions in from the outside of the reactor. > >Indeed, it sounds like they create some magnetic bottle to confine the >electrons. I guess that in theory something like this can work. Probably >you'd need quite a bunch of electrons per ion to accelerate it upto fusion >speeds. >If the amount of electrons per ion has to be high, you probably could use >the magnetic fields for other fusion designs as well. > >>Anyway its about 18 pages of equations and diagrams that I have trouble >>following, and refuse to type in. Highlights are comments on translational >>and recirculating flows, and a slight prolate displacement problem that can >>induce a local current. However the "..counterstreaming interaction of >>particals moving through the central region, which couple their momentum to >>each other through spherical electrostatic waves." --- "vastly exceeds any >>possible local perterbation". >> >>This is a good thing right? ;) > >Electro"static" waves? I always thought that waves implied "dynamics". > >Timothy The system does sound dynamic. Kelly From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 9 21:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1325" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "00:12:04" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "35" "Re: RE: starship-design: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA17261 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 21:12:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout08.mail.aol.com (emout08.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.23]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA17250 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 21:12:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout08.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id AAA15925; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 00:12:04 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970910001158_941638674@emout08.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1324 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Bussard design Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 00:12:04 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/9/97 6:38:16 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly, > >All fusion research money in the US is currently being focused on toroidial >designs that originate from the Russian Tokamak design. Even though there are >SEVERAL other designs that promise better LONG TERM returns, the lure of the >near term success of Tokamak designs created by a 20 year head start results >in an institutional resistance on the part of the federal government to fund >any other research. > >The problem with the other ideas is that they would take twenty years of >research to get to the point that toroidal is today. The powers that be view >that as unacceptable. > >Lee Not nessisarily true. Comercial laser fusion research in the '80s progressed much farther in a couple years then Tocamak designs ever got, the government did review the bussard design and thought it far more promising then Toc, and Bussards company got investment for other non-Tok projects. The bad news is comercial investment dried up when they realized the energy crises wasn't there, and without it their was little market. And the gov said they didn't want to fund a new concept until they made Toc work, even thou their current designs are considered useless even if they did work. (good money after bad anyone?) Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 07:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["277" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "10:25:32" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "17" "Re: starship-design: Nuclear Powered Navy" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA05423 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 07:26:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout24.mail.aol.com (emout24.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.129]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA05398 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 07:26:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout24.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id KAA01023; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 10:25:32 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970910000107_1261816078@emout04.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 276 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Nuclear Powered Navy Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 10:25:32 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/9/97 6:38:01 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly, > >I did discover that we do have one nuclear powered CRUISER! The USS California. > >Lee Really? I remeber their was some other nuke ship, but don't recognize that name. Hum. Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 09:56 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1452" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "09:56:36" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "30" "starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA21341 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:56:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA21314 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:56:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA00609; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:56:36 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA29430; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:56:36 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199709101656.JAA29430@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1451 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:56:36 -0700 Here's some good news for near-term space development that I ran across: A small company unveiled plans today to launch the first private spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit, on a mission to visit a nearby asteroid. A team of University of California, San Diego, students are working on the design of the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), which would be launched in 1999, says Jim Bensen, chair of Colorado- based SpaceDev. The company hopes to turn a profit on the sale of data from the target asteroid, which will be chosen later and depends on the exact launch date. Bensen is betting that his company can build and launch the spacecraft for under $50 million--a fraction of the cost of a typical NASA space science mission--and offer the resulting data to government agencies for less than a government mission would cost. NEAP would carry a camera, a proton spectrometer to determine the composition of the asteroid's surface, and a neutron spectrometer that could detect the presence of hydrogen. The ultimate goal of the company, he adds, is to mine nearby asteroids for precious metals and ancient comets for hydrogen and oxygen. These elements could be ferried to a low-Earth orbit and turned into materials and propellant for other missions. SpaceDev has raised nearly all of the money needed to build the spacecraft from private investors, but Bensen declined to identify them. (from www.sciencenow.org, 9/10/97) From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 14:24 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1892" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "17:24:31" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "55" "Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA18891 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 14:24:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA18809 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 14:24:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id RNL05075; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 17:21:16 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970910.172431.3430.0.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <199709101656.JAA29430@watt> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-43,46-53 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1891 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 17:24:31 -0400 On Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:56:36 -0700 wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) writes: > >Here's some good news for near-term space development that I ran >across: > > >A small company unveiled plans today to launch the first private >spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit, on a mission to visit a nearby >asteroid. A team of University of California, San Diego, students are >working on the design of the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), >which would be launched in 1999, says Jim Bensen, chair of Colorado- >based SpaceDev. The company hopes to turn a profit on the sale of data > >from the target asteroid, which will be chosen later and depends on >the >exact launch date. > >Bensen is betting that his company can build and launch the spacecraft > >for under $50 million--a fraction of the cost of a typical NASA space >science mission--and offer the resulting data to government agencies >for >less than a government mission would cost. NEAP would carry a camera, >a >proton spectrometer to determine the composition of the asteroid's >surface, and a neutron spectrometer that could detect the presence of >hydrogen. > >The ultimate goal of the company, he adds, is to mine nearby asteroids > >for precious metals and ancient comets for hydrogen and oxygen. These >elements could be ferried to a low-Earth orbit and turned into >materials >and propellant for other missions. SpaceDev has raised nearly all of >the >money needed to build the spacecraft from private investors, but >Bensen >declined to identify them. > >(from www.sciencenow.org, 9/10/97) > Now this sounds interesting. Maybe we should start a list, or at least a discussion, on the requirements for getting all the materials we need for starships. Jim C. http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/lab/3403 jimaclem@juno.com Pinky - Are we about to become extinct, Brain? The Brain - Ummm*CLANG* From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 17:17 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["768" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "17:17:44" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "19" "Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA28895 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 17:17:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA28885 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 17:17:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA07347; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 17:17:43 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA03437; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 17:17:44 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199709110017.RAA03437@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 767 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 17:17:44 -0700 Jim writes: >Now this sounds interesting. Maybe we should start a list, or at least a >discussion, on the requirements for getting all the materials we need for >starships. I imagine one of the biggest problems will be transforming a lump of rock into useful form (glass, steel, wire, tubing, etc.) while still in orbit. What would that entail? Miniature orbiting steel mills and glass factories? I know next to nothing about how such things are made on Earth, but I would imagine that there are members who do. I would also imagine that many element-separation schemes involve the use of gravity; something we couldn't use in orbit. Is this right? Or is it all done with different boiling/ melting points? Never really thought much about it before... Ken From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 19:43 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["172" "Tue" "9" "September" "1997" "19:55:54" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "9" "RE: starship-design: RE: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA06408 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 19:43:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA06394 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 19:43:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p8.gnt.com [204.49.68.213]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA27173 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:42:59 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:42:42 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBE32.77EE9D20.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 7 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 171 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: RE: Bussard design Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:55:54 -0500 Ken, You're correct about the money, I just didn't feel like going that deep into the subject. By the way, the US is considering NOT participating in ITER at ALL. Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 20:39 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["811" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "21:47:55" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "19" "RE: RE: starship-design: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA17916 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:39:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA17903 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:39:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA32180 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:39:48 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:39:48 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBE3A.71D69480.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 17 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 810 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: starship-design: Bussard design Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:47:55 -0500 Kelly, > Not nessisarily true. Comercial laser fusion research in the '80s > progressed much farther in a couple years then Tocamak designs ever got, the > government did review the bussard design and thought it far more promising > then Toc, and Bussards company got investment for other non-Tok projects. > The bad news is comercial investment dried up when they realized the energy > crises wasn't there, and without it their was little market. And the gov > said they didn't want to fund a new concept until they made Toc work, even > thou their current designs are considered useless even if they did work. > (good money after bad anyone?) All of this is true also, except that I would say that most of the other designs died in the late 70's. I don't remember many surviving until the 80's. Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 20:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["689" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "21:52:47" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "19" "RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA17932 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:40:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA17915 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:39:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA32186 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:39:52 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:39:53 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBE3A.74AFF340.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 17 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 688 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:52:47 -0500 Ken, > Here's some good news for near-term space development that I ran across: > > > A small company unveiled plans today to launch the first private > spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit, on a mission to visit a nearby > asteroid. A team of University of California, San Diego, students are > working on the design of the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), Jim Bensen announced his intention to do this about six months ago. The latest press release is just an attempt to generate some publicity and some cash. Although I love the idea, he isn't doing very well generating customers. Too bad, because I believe this is the only way we will ever get into space to stay... Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 20:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["657" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "21:57:45" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "17" "RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA17963 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:40:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA17942 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:40:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA32193 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:39:56 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:39:56 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBE3A.76A77D80.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 15 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 656 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:57:45 -0500 Jim, > w this sounds interesting. Maybe we should start a list, or at least a > scussion, on the requirements for getting all the materials we need for > starships. If Benson is correct on the composition of the majority of near Earth asteroids, they would be a far better choice for mining than the moon or Mars. His original announcement months ago was what prompted my discourse on why do we want to go to another star system just to get back down into one of those nasty gravity wells. Especially when there is so much useful, profitable stuff floating around up there where it is easy to get at, once you get up there in the first place. Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 20:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1371" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "22:06:38" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "29" "RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA18000 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:40:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA17976 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:40:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA32200 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:40:00 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:40:00 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBE3A.78C83AA0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 27 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1370 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:06:38 -0500 Ken, > I imagine one of the biggest problems will be transforming a lump of rock > into useful form (glass, steel, wire, tubing, etc.) while still in orbit. > What would that entail? Miniature orbiting steel mills and glass factories? > > I know next to nothing about how such things are made on Earth, but I would > imagine that there are members who do. I would also imagine that many > element-separation schemes involve the use of gravity; something we couldn't > use in orbit. Is this right? Or is it all done with different boiling/ > melting points? Never really thought much about it before... Well yes, quite a lot of our current extraction methods do depend on gravity. But, as someone pointed out, there is no real difference between gravity and properly applied inertia. If it really becomes necessary, I'm sure that some sort of centrifuge can be built. However, I tend to think that we will find vastly superior ways of extracting these ores in zero g. For instance, if we melt down a rock containing a mixture of elements and compounds at appropriate temperatures using a solar powered furnace (free energy) it may well be that the various elements will disassociate themselves automatically. Simply changing the temperature may produce wildly different results. We are currently conducting experiments to test this and other concepts. Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 20:40 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["11125" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "22:39:27" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "195" "starship-design: Antimatter in a Trap" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA18031 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:40:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA18021 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:40:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA32240 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:40:09 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:40:05 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBE3A.7BA93A80.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 193 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 11124 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Antimatter in a Trap Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:39:27 -0500 Antimatter in a Trap by John G. Cramer Alternate View Column AV-10 Keywords: antimatter, positron, quadrupole, Penning trap, CPT Published in the December-1985 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine; This column was written and submitted 5/3/85 and is copyrighted © 1985, John G. Cramer. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form without the explicit permission of the author. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "What", the Alchemist asked his new apprentice, "is the Universal Solvent?" "Master", said the lad, "it's one of the fundamental substances of Alchemy. It will dissolve any solid material. A drop will dissolve the hardest steel, the finest glass, the most inert wax." "Very well", said the old man with a frown. "I am about to make some. Your assignment is to prepare a bottle in which to put it ..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This AV Column is about the Universal Solvent of modern physics which we call antimatter, and about a bottle in which it can be and has been kept. However, before getting to the hardware I want to talk about antimatter as it relates to the fundamental symmetries of the universe. Physicists have, over the years, been able to get a lot of mileage out of a single nifty idea: Nature is Symmetric. Pioneers like Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Fermi, and many recent Nobel laureats have based their work on the notion that nature at the core is basically symmetrical and even-handed. For example, space has the same properties in all directions. The laws of physics must be the same in all inertial (constant-speed) reference frames. An object with certain symmetries produces effects with the same symmetries. The laws of physics must be the same here and now as they were long ago in a galaxy far away. And so on ... And yet as more and more is learned about the inner workings of the universe we have discovered that the breaking of these fundamental symmetries of the universe is also important. The major physics breakthrough of the late 1950's was the revelation that the space symmetry called "parity" (that nature looks the same in mirror-image) is thoroughly broken, spindled, and mutilated by the "weak" force acting in radioactive transformation processes like beta decay. In the mid 1960's it was discovered that the weak decay of the "strange" KoL meson showed a "CP-violation" (the rough equivalent of broken time symmetry). And the recent development of what theoretical physicists modestly call Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) is based on the symmetry breaking of three of the fundamental forces (strong, weak, and electromagnetic). This splitting of one "unified" force into three very different forces happened "spontaneously" as the universe cooled off in expanding after the Big Bang (see "Other Universes I", ANALOG, September, 1984). The symmetries of nature seem made for the breaking. Some broken symmetries are important for our well-being. Our everyday life depends on two overwhelmingly important breakings of symmetry at the macroscopic level: (1) our world is clearly different with time running forward than it would be with time running backwards, and (2) there is more matter than antimatter in our local environment. Some SF writers (Brian Aldiss in Cryptozoic!!, for example) have been able to contemplate a somewhat time-symmetric world. But no one, to my knowlege, has written about everyday life in a "C-symmetric" world in which the local environment was an equal mix of matter and antimatter. Such a literary undertaking would surely be a short story because the incipient matter-antimatter annihilation would blow everything to photons and neutrinos in nanoseconds. And so we have a paradox. The microscopic world is so symmetric that only with the greatest of difficulty have we been able to find one obscure physical process, the KoL decay, which shows any preference at all for one direction of time over another or for matter over antimatter. And yet in the macroscopic every-day world these time and matter preferences are everywhere, and we depend on them in our everyday lives. The matter/antimatter unbalance is not just a local phenomenon. There is now fairly good observational evidence that there are no large amounts of antimatter even in more remote parts of the universe in the form of anti-stars and anti-galaxies. And so we must ask, "How can the macrocosm be so radically different from the microcosm when it is really only a summation of all of the microscopic fundamental processes, as viewed from a distance in space and time?" The preference of the everyday world for the forward time direction, the "Arrow of Time" problem, was discussed in one of my recent AV columns ("Light in Reverse Gear II", ANALOG, August, 1985) and that discussion will do for now. In this AV column I want to consider the questions: "Where did all of this matter come from, and where did all of the antimatter go?" The GUTs theorists believe that they have the answer to this question. Their scenario is that in the primordial soup of the very early universe there were other heavier particles which, like the KoL meson, had a "CP violation", a slight preference for decaying into matter particles instead of antimatter particles. The net result of this is that the early universe had about 100,000,001 protons for every 100,000,000 antiprotons. In the cooling after the Big Bang the protons and antiprotons found and destroyed each other until the slight excess of protons became all the matter there was (and is). A side-effect of the same CP-violating processes is that there is also an excess of electrons over positrons. The surviving protons and electrons, about 100,000 years after the Big Bang, paired off to form hydrogen atoms which eventually went into business as stars and galaxies. The enormous energies from matter-antimatter annihilations of the early universe cooled with expansion down to 3o K, the present average temperature of the universe. The electrons and protons around us (and in us) are the few ragged survivors of the "antimatter wars" of 16 billion years ago. We would like to understand in a more fundamental way why matter was preferred over antimatter in the early universe. The preference shown by the KoL meson (a matter-antimatter pairing of a "strange" quark and a "down" quark) is a tantalizing hint at the matter/antimatter difference, but we would like to know whether there are other ways in which antimatter differs from matter. One way of looking for such differences is to compare all the measurable properties of matter particles (protons and electrons) with the same properties of antimatter particles (antiprotons and positrons). This comes down to the experimental problem of how we can weigh and measure particles of antimatter. The first problem that we encounter here is that there aren't any antimatter particles lying around to be used in measurements. They were all destroyed shortly after the Big Bang. But we are not out of business, because we can make antimatter. We can make antiprotons with large particle accelerators. At the LEAR (Low Energy Antiproton Ring) facility at CERN laboratory in Switzerland, physicists have been able to produce huge numbers of antiprotons, store them for hours in as they coast in circular orbits through a ring of magnets, and finally deliver them as a beam of particles for nuclear reaction studies. Positrons are even easier. Nuclear reactors make certain isotopes which emit positrons during radioactive decay, and positrons can also be produced by beams of electrons and preserved by orbiting in a ring of magnets. In storage rings measurement of the properties of antimatter particles is usually not very precise because the very factors which keep the particles stable in orbit also interfere with measurement precision. Therefore, one would like to be able to measure the particles "at rest" in the laboratory. This is related to the alchemist's problem of storing the Universal Solvent. Since antimatter will annihilate on contact with any matter, what kind of bottle can hold it? Fortunately this problem has an experimental solution. A group of physicists at the University of Washington has developed a bottle for antimatter called a Penning Trap. It looks rather like a metal hour-glass with a knob poking into each end. The knobs and hour-glass are given opposite electrical charges, and the whole thing is placed in a magnetic field pointing along the axis of the hour glass. Into this apparatus one can place a single proton or electron, and the particle will stay there, held in place by the electric and magnetic forces of the trap. One can then "play games" with the trapped particle, putting it through a routine of shaking and bouncing and oscillation that determines its mass, charge, spin, and internal magnetic field to almost unimaginable precision. A few years ago a single particle of antimatter, a positron, was successfully captured in such a trap. Positrons from a radioactive source were slowed and carefully manipulated until one popped into the Penning Trap. There it was weighed and measured it to see whether it showed any differences (other than charge) from its equivalent matter particle, the electron. The same positron stayed in the trap for a number of days. It represents the first instance of artificially produced antimatter at rest on Earth lasting for more than a fraction of a second. The measurements made on the single trapped positron are capable of detecting differences of one part in a trillion (10-12 ), but even with this remarkable accuracy no difference between electrons and positrons was detected. A similar experiment is now being prepared for trapping an antiproton. The trap apparatus will be taken to the LEAR facility at CERN. There an antiproton will be carefully slowed and captured in the trap. The experimenters expect that a proton-antiproton mass difference smaller than one part in a billion (10-9 ) could be detected. If such a difference existed, it would be a very significant clue toward solving the mystery of the matter/antimatter imbalance of the universe. But beyond the weights-and-measures of anitmatter, the experiment will represent a demonstration that antimatter can be produced, captured, and stored at rest for indefinite periods in the laboratory. As Robert W. Forward has pointed out in the pages of Analog, antimatter is the most compact way yet devised for storing energy, and it may have enormous potential as a fuel for starship engines. We have the Universal Solvent and we have the bottle in which to keep it. The rest is a problem for engineers ... and alchemists. REFERENCES: Penning Traps: P. Ekstrom and D. Wineland, Scientific American 243 #2, 105 (August, 1980). Trapped Positron: P. B. Schwinberg, R. S. Van Dyck, Jr., and H. G. Dehmelt, Physical Review Letters 47, 1679 (1981). From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 21:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2962" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "22:52:30" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "50" "starship-design: Fwd: Antimatter as a Power Source" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA22721 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:01:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA22706 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:01:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01168 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 23:01:33 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 23:01:28 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBE3D.784B1400.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 48 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2961 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Fwd: Antimatter as a Power Source Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:52:30 -0500 Antimatter as a Power Source Besides being used as tools to check the validity of current theories, antiprotons and antihydrogen also could be used for other applications. Because of the 100 percent conversion into energy when matter and antimatter meet, very small amounts of antimatter could produce very large amounts of energy. Conceivably, an antimatter fueled power source could be very compact, and very powerful. However, Holzscheiter does not see this happening with our current technology or understanding of physics. "What is needed are fundamentally new ideas on how to handle it [antimatter], how to convert it into energy, how to use it," he says. However, plans already are being formulated to use antiprotons in space propulsion systems. One of the early U.S. space shuttle astronauts, Ernst Messerschmidt of the Space Research Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, is pursuing the use of antiprotons as a heating agent for a plasma drive. Antiprotons would be injected into a cloud of charged particles (a plasma) confined by a magnetic field. The interaction between the antimatter and matter would generate an increased temperature, which converts to an output of energy for space applications. Messerschmidt is ready to set up a small experiment at CERN, as soon as the antiproton beam becomes available, to see how efficiently the process works. Another propulsion scheme, antiproton catalyzed microfission/fusion (ACMF), has been proposed by Smith of Penn State, and others. ACMF involves putting short bursts of antiprotons into a fissionable material (e.g., uranium). The induced temperature increase would be high enough to induce ignition of a hydrogen fusion burn within a microcapsule. (A microcapsule is about the size of a BB, and contains hydrogen as a high-pressure gas or liquid. Microcapsules are used in fusion research.) For a 130-day round trip to Mars--with a 30-day stay--Smith figures ACMF would require about a microgram of antiprotons or antihydrogen--about a year's production of antiprotons at Fermilab. The cost of the antimatter would be about $50 million, he says. A spacecraft has been designed around an ACMF engine, and a demonstration of ACMF is planned. The key question for any application dreamed up by scientists is what amount of antimatter will be needed? According to Rolf Landua, a physicist at CERN and a member of the ATHENA team, "It is quite absurd right now to talk about macroscopic applications, because all the antimatter that has been produced in the past 10 years at CERN is about one nanogram [a billionth of a gram]." He estimates that to produce a milligram with CERN's present technology would take about a million years and cost about $100 trillion (without inflation). However, Smith of Penn State points out that with new technology, producing a milligram of antimatter would take "about 10 years and cost $1 to $2 billion." Lee From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 10 21:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["16078" "Wed" "10" "September" "1997" "23:01:15" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "294" "starship-design: Other Universes I" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA22751 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:01:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA22741 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:01:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p31.gnt.com [204.49.68.236]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01185 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 23:01:44 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 23:01:33 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBE3D.7BC323C0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 292 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 16077 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: Other Universes I Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 23:01:15 -0500 I just know I am going to regret forwarding this one, but, it was getting kind of slow... ________________________________________________________________________ ______ Other Universes I by John G. Cramer Alternate View Column AV-02 Keywords: cosmology, bubble, universe, inflation Published in the September-1984 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine; This column was written and submitted 2/10/84 and is copyrighted ©1984, John G. Cramer. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form without the explicit permission of the author. This page now has an access count of: In the fullness of Creation do other universes, other Worlds, exist? Are there Worlds where history is different? Where triumphant Nazis rule an aryan-ized planet? Where Napoleon defeated Wellington and went on to conquer England? Where the Persians beat the Greeks at Marathon, and Western Civilization never happened? Where Homo-Sap never made it, and dinosaur decendants, un-extinguished and evolved over 65 million years, are the dominant life form? Are there Worlds where the laws of physics are not quite the same? Where light travels faster? Where gravity is stronger? Where the nuclear binding force is weaker? Where electrons have a smaller charge? Where the Uncertainty Principle is less uncertain? Are there Worlds which are radically different from ours? Where there are no chemical elements except hydrogen and helium? Where stars never formed? Where every atom has a nucleus of anti-protons and anti-neutrons orbited by positrons? Where time runs backwards? Where the Big Bang never Banged at all, and space is still crunched up into a single geometrical point? Where the strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational forces are all the same force? These are intrinsically fascinating questions. And a few of them have provided backdrops for some of the best science fiction written. In this Alternate View column I want to examine an area of contemporary physics, the "new inflationary scenario" of cosmology, which has something to tell us about these questions. And in my next (October) Alternate View column, we will look at the same questions using the "Other Worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, a very different area of physics which also has much to say about alternate universes. GUTs cosmology is a recent development which has come from a joining of the ideas of Big Bang cosmology (the way the universe evolved from the initial Big Bang) with GUTS or Grand Unification Theories (see The Alternate View, Analog, July, 1984). In the 1950's, George Gamow and his students developed the Big Bang model for describing the initial stages and evolution of our universe. The theory was neglected (and even ridiculed) by the physics "mainstream" until 1965, when Penzias and Wilson announced the detection of cosmic 2.7deg. K microwave radiation produced in an early phase of the Big Bang. Suddenly, the Big Bang model was an experimentally verified fact. It became the "standard" cosmological model and revolutionized astrophysics. But soon physicists began to realize that it did not explain everything about the evolution of the universe. It became obvious that there were problems built into the description. These problems have become known as: (1) The Problem of Matter: Why is there more matter than antimatter in the universe? (2) The Problem of Uniformity: Why is the universe so homogeneous, when its parts went out of speed-of-light contact very early in the Big Bang and are only "recently" rejoined? (3) The Problem of Flatness: Why does the universe have just the right density of matter in its volume to be precisely on the borderline between re-collapse and continuous expansion? (4) The Problem of Monopoles: Why aren't there more magnetic monopoles around, when the standard model predicts that there should be an enormous number of them? A few decades ago these would all have been considered metaphysical questions, not proper subjects for physical investigations. But contemporary physicists, emboldened by the recent successes in particle physics, have found ways of approaching them. And they have made impressive progress toward answering them through some new ideas arising from the Grand Unification Theories mentioned above. The Big Bang + GUTs scenario goes something like this: there are two kinds of space, which we might call H-space and N-space. Here N stands for "normal" and H refers to Higgs, the Scottish physicist who first suggested the possibility that H-space, also called "the false vacuum" might exist. We live in N-space. We have never experienced H-space directly, but recent work in particle physics suggests that N-space could be converted to H-space by pumping enough energy into a small enough region. And perhaps there is also a tiny region of H-space at the core of each magnetic monopole, if such particles exist in our universe. In N-space the three strongest fundamental forces of the universe (the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions) can easily be distinguished. They have very different strengths, and their change with distance is very different. But in H-space these forces are all the same and cannot not be distinguished from one another. In H-space quarks, electrons, neutrinos, and photons are all the same particles with nothing to distinguish them. Immediately after the Big Bang there was so much energy in such a small volume that all space was H-space. During this period, the universe expanded far faster than its present expansion rate. But as the universe expanded and more volume became available for the same amount of energy, the energy/volume ratio of space fell. About one millionth of a second after the start of the Big Bang, when the universe had expanded to about the size of a grapefruit, the energy/volume ratio had fallen to a low enough value that N-space became possible and H-space became "supersaturated". Regions of N-space begin to "precipitate out". As such regions of N-space appeared, the three forces within these regions "split" from one another, becoming different forces rather than the same force and the corresponding particles (hadrons, leptons, photons) also became distinguishable. This "splitting" is like the change from one state of matter to another, for example, boiling water changing from liquid to steam. But in this case it is space itself which "boiled". And, as you might expect of a boiling medium, "bubbles" formed. But the bubbles which form when space itself boils are not our ordinary bubbles with gas inside and liquid outside. These bubbles have N-space inside and H-space outside. Our universe just is one of these bubbles. We have experienced only N-space because we are stuck inside it. And there should be very many N-space bubbles in the H-space "sea". The boiling of space, the conversion of H-space to N-space, frees a truly enormous amount of energy. This energy ends up in the walls of each bubble, causing the walls to move outward from the central region at nearly the speed of light. So each bubble-universe expands, as ours seems to still be doing some 4 billion years after the Big Bang. This revised version of the Big Bang model is called "the New Inflationary Scenario". It seems to provides solutions to all of the problems mentioned above of the "standard" Big Bang model. There is an excess of matter over antimatter in our universe because a "CP violation" occurred during the boiling phase, producing about .00000002% more protons than antiprotons (and .00000002% more electrons than positrons). The vast majority of the matter and antimatter particles from the Big Bang paired off and annihilated, but this small residue remained to become the protons and electrons of which our world is made. Uniformity is accounted for because the chunk of the Big Bang forming our universe was small enough and expanded fast enough. Flatness comes directly from the way in which the bubble expands, keeping the balance of matter and expansion speed of the universe precisely at the balance point between infinite expansion and eventual recontraction. The monopole number is reduced because the monopoles from the Big Bang have a large number of bubble-universes in which to end up, not just one. There is even some reason to suspect that each bubble-universe contains exactly one magnetic monopole, which is the "nucleating agent" that caused it to "precipitate" from H-space, like the dust particle at the heart of every raindrop. So there are other Worlds! In the new inflationary scenario there are a very very many other Worlds. But these Worlds are not easy to reach from here. In the first place, there is just enough mass in our universe to cause our local space to exactly close on itself. In effect we are barely trapped in a rapidly expanding black hole. And there seems no way of leaving our local space to enter the sea of H-space "outside". Perhaps that is just as well, because the surrounding H-space is probably not compatible with body chemistry (or with life). On inaccessible other shores of the H-space sea will be other Worlds, islands of N-space that came from the same Big Bang which produced ours. They should be similar to our World, but perhaps they are also different. But in what way can these other bubble-universes be different from ours? In N-space the laws of physics (as we know them) should apply. How then, without changing the laws of physics, might these other Worlds be different? First, there is no particular reason why the CP violation mentioned above should always lead to an excess of matter over antimatter. So perhaps some of the other Worlds are all antimatter. Second, no one really understands why time in our World runs in the direction it does. So perhaps some of the other Worlds would have time running in the opposite direction. Third, when the bubbles formed, they would probably have many different sizes, each with a different amount of mass-energy trapped inside. What would that do? A relatively untested physical idea called Mach's Principle, first proposed by Ernst Mach (known for the Mach Number of supersonic flight) gives us a way of answering this question. It asserts that the force of inertia, which we experience as resistance to acceleration, is the result of the gravitational pulls of all the other masses in the universe (the Sun, other stars, and even distant galaxies). If Mach's Principle can be applied to an individual bubble-universe, then the inertia which an object has (which we call its inertial mass) should depend directly on how much mass-energy is contained in that bubble-universe. The gravitational mass (how much pull due to gravity a massive object experiences) should not depend on this. The net result is that an object in another bubble-universe would, have a different ratio of gravitational to inertial mass. This would change the masses of protons, electrons, etc. in all of the laws of physics in which the mass in the formula means reaction to inertia (as it usually does in atomic and nuclear physics). Sizes of atoms, positions of orbiting electron shells, chemical bonds linking one atom to another, nuclear structure, and synthesis in supernovae of heavier nuclei from lighter nuclei would all be altered. Suppose that we could build a machine, a "Universe-swapper" by which could transport a Voyager safely across the H-space sea from our World to one of its bubble-universe siblings. What would we find? If the universe visited was filled with antimatter the Voyager would probably have an unpleasant time. All of the matter sent across would be annihilated on contact with with antimatter on the other side. Our Voyager would have to remain in the hardest vacuum to avoid a lethal dose of radiation from the random anti-gas molecules of deep space annihilating on contact with his vehicle or space suit. To natives of the time-reversed universes, their universe would appear to be contracting to a Big Crunch rather than expanding from a Big Bang. The light from distant stars (if any) would be blue shifted rather than red shifted, making the sky very bright and perhaps intolerably hot. Our Voyager, if he retained his own time direction, would perceive the sibling universe as running backwards. He would watch the Second Law of Thermodynamics operating in reverse: water would run uphill, the dead would come to life, food would be produced by un-eating it so that it could be converted into plants and animals. Or perhaps our Voyager would be swept along with the time direction of the sibling universe. In that case, he would find on his return to our universe that he had returned before the time of his departure. This, as most SF readers already know, can produce some interesting and paradoxical situations. But what about the Worlds containing normal matter and having time proceeding in the proper direction? If Mach's principle works the inertial masses of objects will be altered, effectively changing the laws of physics in these Worlds. In a broad class of such universes, no stars or galaxies would have formed; in another group there would be stars and galaxies, but no synthesis of elements heavier than helium; in another group there would be stars, galaxies, and the usual chemical elements, but no planets; and in a another group there would be planets, but none that would support life. In only an extremely small fraction of the universes would life be possible. And it is difficult to say how much variation in the laws of chemistry would be permitted after the physics worked out to produce life-supporting planets. Clearly the carbon chemical bond is a subtle prerequisite to life-as-we-know-it which would not tolerate much tinkering. So our Voyager, upon entering a sibling bubble-universe, might find that his body chemistry had gone bonkers, perhaps fatally. And we must also remember that the operation of solid-state electronics depends on the accidental placement of a "gap" between the atomic states of semiconductor materials like silicon and germanium. Our universe-swapper device and its recording equipment should probably be built with old-fashioned tubes rather than solid-state electronics in order to be "universe-tolerant" and behave itself after reaching its destination. My friend Gene Wolfe has suggested that if our own universe is not all of Creation but only one bubble out of many in the stream of Time, then calling it "The Universe" is no longer sufficient. We need a Name for it. He suggested "Malkuth", which is the Kabbalist name for "world". But I find Malkuth rather unappealing; it sounds too much like "uncouth" and would give completely the wrong impression of our Universe to an outsider. So, in order to correct this Name deficiency, I hereby announce the 1984 ANALOG Name-the-Universe Competition!! The winner will receive a free one year subscription to this magazine and will, in addition, achieve the true immortality of having chosen the proper name of an important natural object, in this case the Universe in which we live. Send your entries (one per letter please) to me in care of ANALOG, 380 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Include your name and address, your suggestion for the Name of the Universe, and a brief statement of why you feel the Name is appropriate. The winning Name and the name of the winner will be announced in a later AV column (probably in early 1985). REFERENCES: D. N. Schramm, Physics Today 36 #4, 27 (April, 1983). A. H. Guth, Physical Review D 23, 347 (1981). A. Alberecht and P. J. Steinhardt, Physical Review Letters 48, 1220 (1982). FIGURE CAPTION: Bubbles in the Big Bang: some "bubbles" may form antimatter universes; some may form universes in which time runs backwards, some may resemble our universe but with altered physical laws. Lee From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 11 07:25 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["637" "Thu" "11" "September" "1997" "16:25:41" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "16" "RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA22604 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 07:25:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA22513 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 07:25:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-020.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x9ACb-000HlIC; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:26:37 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 636 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:25:41 +0100 Lee wrote, >If you have magnetic fields capable of generating enough delta v to grab a >fuel pellet moving that fast and drag it toward the axis of the engine (?) >in such a limited time, WHY are you bothering to fuse it? It sounds to me >like you already have your propulsion - the magnetic field itself. If it >can do what you say, then simply accelerate the pellet in the appropriate >direction, the heck with trying to fuse it. To accelerate the pellet one needs energy. The idea was that we would get that energy by fusing the pellet. (Since this is a more or less beamed design, there is no energy stored onboard.) Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 11 07:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3270" "Thu" "11" "September" "1997" "16:25:38" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "69" "Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA22829 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 07:26:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA22797 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 07:26:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-020.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0x9ACY-000JKiC; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:26:34 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3269 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:25:38 +0100 Kelly, you replied to me: >>I think one of the problems in you letters with Isaac is that you assume >>that the pellet has to be stopped first before it can be fused. And that >>thus most kinetic energy of the incoming particles is lost. (If this is not >>the problem, then likely you can neglect the rest of my explanation.) > >I don't assume it must be stoped but I assume: > >The fuel will be accelerated inward in order to get it into the ships axis > quickly, and this will need to be a major delta-v due to the high relative >velocity. > >That this delta -v will heat the fuel and put a major structural and power >load on the fields. Whether one can catch the fuel will of course greatly depend on the accuracy of the pellet-track and the strength of the magnetic fields. Isaac mentions using "fuel-drones" to enhance the accuracy, my guess is that one indeed can use these to deliver pellets with an accuracy of meters. >That particals don't instently fuse when they ram one another. > >That given the time delays I'ld expect in fusion, and the high relative >speed, I'ld worry the fusion won't release usefull energy until its past the >ship. This indeed might be a problem, though I think that in theory the particles could be decelerated to fuse while still within the magnetic field. >Also due to the high relative speed and the comparativly meager exaust >velocity, I'm not clear how you can gat any thrust out of the system. What other reasons than those you mention above would give a meager exhaust velocity? >>If the particles wouldn't fuse, they would expand again in the output nozzle >>(which also is a magnetic funnel, but now expanding in the direction of the >>particles movement). The outward expansion of the particle will push against >>the widening magnetic funnel and accelerate the ramjet forward so that its >>final velocity is the same as before the pellet entered it. (Pushing against >>a widening magnetic funnel, is like pushing against a slanting plane: the >>direction of your push is partly converted into forward motion and partly to >>sideward motion.) > >I'ld agree with this if it wasn't for the high relative speed. Since the >plasma can only expand outward at a certain maximum speed due to internal >presure. If the relative angle formed by the lateral velocity of the plasma >relative to the 'rearward' velocity of the plasma stream, is shallower then >the slat angle of the magnetic exaust nozzel, you won't get any "push against >the widening magnetic funnel". > >I think the relative velocities would give a 1 to 8 to 1 to 15 angle. Pretty >hard to use in a magnetiv rocket nozzel. The intake velocity and exhaust velocity are probably rather similar, since the fusion reaction will likely add only a little bit of velocity. So both intake and exhaust nozzle have a similar geometry. The angle depends on how far the magnetic field can extend. A longer exhaust nozzle means more time for the plasma to expand and thus a smaller angle can be used. It might even be possible to pinch the magnetic field after the pellet went through. Then there is no other way for the plasma to go than through the exhaust. Maybe Isaac can give you a closer explanation of the configuration of the magnetic field. Timothy From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 11 21:06 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["372" "Thu" "11" "September" "1997" "22:38:17" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "13" "RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA29368 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 21:06:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA29342 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 21:06:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p26.gnt.com [204.49.68.231]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA29983 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 23:06:01 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 23:05:57 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBF07.43850A80.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 11 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 371 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:38:17 -0500 Timothy, > To accelerate the pellet one needs energy. The idea was that we would get > that energy by fusing the pellet. (Since this is a more or less beamed > design, there is no energy stored onboard.) Ahh, well I had already noticed the energy discrepancy, but I had attributed it (correctly, it seems) to something I had missed in an earlier conversation. Lee From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 11 22:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1611" "Fri" "12" "September" "1997" "01:07:26" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "38" "Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA12488 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:08:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA12469 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:07:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id BAA09790; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 01:07:26 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970912010726_549309352@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1610 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 01:07:26 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/10/97 10:57:54 AM, wharton@physics.ucla.edu wrote: > >Here's some good news for near-term space development that I ran across: > > >A small company unveiled plans today to launch the first private >spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit, on a mission to visit a nearby >asteroid. A team of University of California, San Diego, students are >working on the design of the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), >which would be launched in 1999, says Jim Bensen, chair of Colorado- >based SpaceDev. The company hopes to turn a profit on the sale of data >from the target asteroid, which will be chosen later and depends on the >exact launch date. > >Bensen is betting that his company can build and launch the spacecraft >for under $50 million--a fraction of the cost of a typical NASA space >science mission--and offer the resulting data to government agencies for >less than a government mission would cost. NEAP would carry a camera, a >proton spectrometer to determine the composition of the asteroid's >surface, and a neutron spectrometer that could detect the presence of >hydrogen. > >The ultimate goal of the company, he adds, is to mine nearby asteroids >for precious metals and ancient comets for hydrogen and oxygen. These >elements could be ferried to a low-Earth orbit and turned into materials >and propellant for other missions. SpaceDev has raised nearly all of the >money needed to build the spacecraft from private investors, but Bensen >declined to identify them. > >(from www.sciencenow.org, 9/10/97) Very good news indead if they can pull it off. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 11 22:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1570" "Fri" "12" "September" "1997" "01:07:37" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "43" "Re: RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA12512 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:08:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout03.mail.aol.com (emout03.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.94]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA12502 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:08:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout03.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id BAA17916; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 01:07:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970912010734_841885304@emout03.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1569 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 01:07:37 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/10/97 3:47:42 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly, Timothy and Isaac, > >Just a couple of ideas: > >I haven't really been following this thread very closely so excuse me if I >misunderstand or misconstrue... > >If you have magnetic fields capable of generating enough delta v to grab a >fuel pellet moving that fast and drag it toward the axis of the engine (?) >in such a limited time, WHY are you bothering to fuse it? It sounds to me >like you already have your propulsion - the magnetic field itself. If it >can do what you say, then simply accelerate the pellet in the appropriate >direction, the heck with trying to fuse it. If you don't fuse the fuel, how do you power the magnets? Whatever you do (unless you have some seriousl new physics) it will take a lot of power to accelerate a starship. It has to come from somewhere. (Frankly fusion is inadiquate to be practically effective at this.) >(HOLD ON TO YOUR PANTS FOR THIS ONE) > >Second, YOU ONLY NEED ONE PELLET. Actually, more would help, but if you >have two ships accelerating in opposite directions they can throw the same >pellet(s) back and forth. This perfect for breaking one ship while the >other half accelerates for a fly by. Of course this assumes that your >catcher field can stop a pellet moving at light speed and then reaccelerate >it back to light speed going the other way. And how do you ever have the ship return to earth if for any ship going one way, another must be going in exactly the opposite direction? ;) >Lee Kelly From owner-starship-design Fri Sep 12 06:59 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["191" "Fri" "12" "September" "1997" "08:57:58" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "11" "RE: RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA29178 for starship-design-outgoing; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 06:59:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA29150 for ; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 06:59:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p11.gnt.com [204.49.68.216]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA21290 for ; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 08:59:42 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 08:59:40 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCBF5A.342C1F80.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 Encoding: 9 TEXT Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 190 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: RE: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 08:57:58 -0500 Kelly, > And how do you ever have the ship return to earth if for any ship going one > way, another must be going in exactly the opposite direction? Hey, no system is perfect ?-) Lee From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 14 09:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1651" "Sun" "14" "September" "1997" "12:28:09" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "40" "Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA27532 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:28:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout05.mail.aol.com (emout05.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.96]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA27513 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:28:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout05.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id MAA29120; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:28:09 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970914122808_121101653@emout05.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1650 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:28:09 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/11/97 3:59:29 AM, wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) wrote: >Jim writes: > >>Now this sounds interesting. Maybe we should start a list, or at least a >>discussion, on the requirements for getting all the materials we need for >>starships. > >I imagine one of the biggest problems will be transforming a lump of rock >into useful form (glass, steel, wire, tubing, etc.) while still in orbit. >What would that entail? Miniature orbiting steel mills and glass factories? > >I know next to nothing about how such things are made on Earth, but I would >imagine that there are members who do. I would also imagine that many >element-separation schemes involve the use of gravity; something we couldn't >use in orbit. Is this right? Or is it all done with different boiling/ >melting points? Never really thought much about it before... > >Ken In general metalic asteroids natural composition is high grade stainless steel. Melt, separte out the impurities and cast to suit. Lighter alloys and stuff are around near earth space (the moon is rich in titanium and silicon). Also lots of oil for plastics and composites. A lot of prosses here do melt stuff and let it separte out by weigh. If we need gravity we can spin things in a cetrafuge. BUT the lack of gravity allows other processes, and radical alloy mixtures. Heating is easy. Lay out a few square kilometers of aliuminum foil and focuse sunlight onto the rock you want heated. As long as more energy is beamed on it then it can radiate away it will keep geting hotter. In general space is far more friendly to industrial manufacturing then earth. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 14 09:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2223" "Sun" "14" "September" "1997" "12:28:08" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "62" "Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA27540 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:28:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout02.mail.aol.com (emout02.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.93]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA27506 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout02.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id MAA24322; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:28:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970914122805_68397141@emout02.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2222 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jimaclem@juno.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:28:08 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/11/97 2:11:19 AM, jimaclem@juno.com wrote: > >On Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:56:36 -0700 wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) >writes: >> >>Here's some good news for near-term space development that I ran >>across: >> >> >>A small company unveiled plans today to launch the first private >>spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit, on a mission to visit a nearby >>asteroid. A team of University of California, San Diego, students are >>working on the design of the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), >>which would be launched in 1999, says Jim Bensen, chair of Colorado- >>based SpaceDev. The company hopes to turn a profit on the sale of data >> >>from the target asteroid, which will be chosen later and depends on >>the >>exact launch date. >> >>Bensen is betting that his company can build and launch the spacecraft >> >>for under $50 million--a fraction of the cost of a typical NASA space >>science mission--and offer the resulting data to government agencies >>for >>less than a government mission would cost. NEAP would carry a camera, >>a >>proton spectrometer to determine the composition of the asteroid's >>surface, and a neutron spectrometer that could detect the presence of >>hydrogen. >> >>The ultimate goal of the company, he adds, is to mine nearby asteroids >> >>for precious metals and ancient comets for hydrogen and oxygen. These >>elements could be ferried to a low-Earth orbit and turned into >>materials >>and propellant for other missions. SpaceDev has raised nearly all of >>the >>money needed to build the spacecraft from private investors, but >>Bensen >>declined to identify them. >> >>(from www.sciencenow.org, 9/10/97) >> > >Now this sounds interesting. Maybe we should start a list, or at least a >discussion, on the requirements for getting all the materials we need for >starships. > >Jim C. How to buld a starship, cheap. ;) Frankly anything we have here on earth is prety plantifull in near earth or farther space. How to process it effectivly might be a better topic. Or waht we would want to build out their (and carry the ability to build at the destination, and what we'ld need to build and launch to do it is a good topic to. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 14 10:44 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["159" "Sun" "14" "September" "1997" "12:44:30" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "7" "starship-design: New drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA13306 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 10:44:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA13295 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 10:44:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-68.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-68.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.68]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA16238 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 13:44:46 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <341C3E9D.619E@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 158 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: New drive design Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:44:30 -0700 Greetings: A friend of mine at NASA told me about a new drive design they're working on. Would you like to hear it? Its not FTL, I promise. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 14 11:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4870" "Sun" "14" "September" "1997" "14:25:57" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "116" "Re: Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA22406 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:26:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout17.mail.aol.com (emout17.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.43]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA22395 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:26:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout17.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id OAA21763; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:25:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970914142550_1594703099@emout17.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4869 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:25:57 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/11/97 8:26:50 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl wrote: >Kelly, you replied to me: > >>>I think one of the problems in you letters with Isaac is that you assume >>>that the pellet has to be stopped first before it can be fused. And that >>>thus most kinetic energy of the incoming particles is lost. (If this is not >>>the problem, then likely you can neglect the rest of my explanation.) >> >>I don't assume it must be stoped but I assume: >> >>The fuel will be accelerated inward in order to get it into the ships axis >> quickly, and this will need to be a major delta-v due to the high relative >>velocity. >> >>That this delta -v will heat the fuel and put a major structural and power >>load on the fields. > >Whether one can catch the fuel will of course greatly depend on the accuracy >of the pellet-track and the strength of the magnetic fields. >Isaac mentions using "fuel-drones" to enhance the accuracy, my guess is that >one indeed can use these to deliver pellets with an accuracy of meters. Given that these drones would need to do that at up to 2.5 light months of distence, after floating in space for a decade, I'ld be far less confident of that. >>That particals don't instently fuse when they ram one another. >> >>That given the time delays I'ld expect in fusion, and the high relative >>speed, I'ld worry the fusion won't release usefull energy until its past the >>ship. > >This indeed might be a problem, though I think that in theory the particles >could be decelerated to fuse while still within the magnetic field. True, but that that involves a lot of delta-V on the ship in the wrong direction. Given the deceleration of the fuel stream could need to be greater then the acceleration possible by fusing the fuel. Ram scoops could well be incapable of boosting themselves against their fuel stream. Also the more thrust load the scop systems requires, the less advantagious a ramscoop would be in comparison to just caring the fuel on the craft. >>Also due to the high relative speed and the comparativly meager exaust >>velocity, I'm not clear how you can gat any thrust out of the system. > >What other reasons than those you mention above would give a meager exhaust >velocity? The maximum velocity of the fision products are limited by the physics of the fusion reaction. That speed is, as I remember, about an order of magnitude less then the maximum relative velocity of the fuel stream to the ship. At best the fusion motor could only add a trivial amount of speed to the exaust stream. If the fuel stream had to be decelerated to much, the exaust speed could well be less then the initial fuel stream speed. >>>If the particles wouldn't fuse, they would expand again in the output nozzle >>>(which also is a magnetic funnel, but now expanding in the direction of the >>>particles movement). The outward expansion of the particle will push against >>>the widening magnetic funnel and accelerate the ramjet forward so that its >>>final velocity is the same as before the pellet entered it. (Pushing agains t >>>a widening magnetic funnel, is like pushing against a slanting plane: the >>>direction of your push is partly converted into forward motion and partly to >>>sideward motion.) >> >>I'ld agree with this if it wasn't for the high relative speed. Since the >>plasma can only expand outward at a certain maximum speed due to internal >>presure. If the relative angle formed by the lateral velocity of the plasma >>relative to the 'rearward' velocity of the plasma stream, is shallower then >>the slat angle of the magnetic exaust nozzel, you won't get any "push against >>the widening magnetic funnel". >> >>I think the relative velocities would give a 1 to 8 to 1 to 15 angle. Pretty >>hard to use in a magnetiv rocket nozzel. > >The intake velocity and exhaust velocity are probably rather similar, since >the fusion reaction will likely add only a little bit of velocity. So both >intake and exhaust nozzle have a similar geometry. The angle depends on how >far the magnetic field can extend. A longer exhaust nozzle means more time >for the plasma to expand and thus a smaller angle can be used. Not really. The intake has to be very broughd to scoop up the dispersed stream. So it needs to be wide, and presumably short to limit the power and structural loads. >It might even be possible to pinch the magnetic field after the pellet went >through. Then there is no other way for the plasma to go than through the >exhaust. Maybe Isaac can give you a closer explanation of the configuration >of the magnetic field. Maybe, but that seems pretty quick manipulation of a magnetic field. Come to think of it, that wouldn't help. In the worst case situation the fusion product forward velocity would still be up to 90% of the rearward velocity for the fuel stream. >Timothy Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 14 11:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1163" "Sun" "14" "September" "1997" "14:26:08" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "33" "Re: RE: RE: starship-design: Bussard design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA22434 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:26:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout02.mail.aol.com (emout02.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.93]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA22424 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:26:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout02.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id OAA28056 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:26:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970914142602_1229153990@emout02.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1162 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: RE: starship-design: Bussard design Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:26:08 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/12/97 11:29:50 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Kelly, > > >> Not nessisarily true. Comercial laser fusion research in the '80s >> progressed much farther in a couple years then Tocamak designs ever got, the >> government did review the bussard design and thought it far more promising >> then Toc, and Bussards company got investment for other non-Tok projects. >> The bad news is comercial investment dried up when they realized the energy >> crises wasn't there, and without it their was little market. And the gov >> said they didn't want to fund a new concept until they made Toc work, even >> thou their current designs are considered useless even if they did work. >> (good money after bad anyone?) > >All of this is true also, except that I would say that most of the other designs >died in the late 70's. I don't remember many surviving until the 80's. > >Lee Comercial work did extend into the '80's, but its didn't get much press. When entrapenurial investors dried up in the mid '80's about all the projects went on the shelf. Bussards company is still around for example, but it just does studies. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 14 11:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["196" "Sun" "14" "September" "1997" "14:26:20" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "6" "starship-design: The mail" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA22479 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:26:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA22464 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:26:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id OAA18630 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:26:20 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970914142612_114382547@emout07.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 195 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: The mail Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:26:20 -0400 (EDT) I get occasional mail from folks who like the LIT Web. Is anyone interested in reading it? It didn't occur to me before, and no one asked, so I hadn't been. But I thought I should ask. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 14 11:26 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["317" "Sun" "14" "September" "1997" "14:26:23" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "15" "Re: starship-design: New drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA22495 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:26:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com (emout04.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.95]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA22466 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:26:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id OAA23071 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:26:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970914142504_154832837@emout04.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 316 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: New drive design Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:26:23 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/14/97 11:46:00 AM, stk@sunherald.infi.net wrote: >Greetings: > >A friend of mine at NASA told me about a new drive design they're >working on. Would you like to hear it? Its not FTL, I promise. > >Kyle Mcallister Of course. We're interested in all current or near term technologies. Kelly From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 14 11:28 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1210" "Sun" "14" "September" "1997" "14:27:46" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "30" "Re: RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA22734 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:28:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com (emout04.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.95]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA22696 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:28:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id OAA24255 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:27:46 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970914142605_1089240134@emout04.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1209 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:27:46 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/12/97 11:32:40 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker) wrote: >Jim, > >> w this sounds interesting. Maybe we should start a list, or at least a >> scussion, on the requirements for getting all the materials we need for >> starships. > >If Benson is correct on the composition of the majority of near Earth >asteroids, they would be a far better choice for mining than the moon >or Mars. His original announcement months ago was what prompted my >discourse on why do we want to go to another star system just to get >back down into one of those nasty gravity wells. Especially when there >is so much useful, profitable stuff floating around up there where it >is easy to get at, once you get up there in the first place. > >Lee Well if you can get back and forth between the stars, geting up and down from a planet is trivial. On the other had its estimated that the resources of this starsystems are enough to support a human population hundreds of thousands, to hundreds of millions of times our current population. So colonizing star systems with our limited tech seems pretty dumb. Which make the push to explore other stars with our current limited tech pretty thin. Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 06:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["386" "Mon" "15" "September" "1997" "09:48:45" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "17" "Re: starship-design: The mail" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA25672 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 06:47:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA25627 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 06:47:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JvN17612; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:47:07 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970915.094941.12958.3.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <970914142612_114382547@emout07.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-15 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 385 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: The mail Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:48:45 -0400 On Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:26:20 -0400 (EDT) KellySt@aol.com writes: >I get occasional mail from folks who like the LIT Web. Is anyone >interested >in reading it? It didn't occur to me before, and no one asked, so I >hadn't >been. But I thought I should ask. > >Kelly > Hey, it never hurts to get other opinions! Jim C. Brain - I feel the need, the need for expiditious velocity! From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 06:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["626" "Mon" "15" "September" "1997" "09:47:32" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: New drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA25687 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 06:47:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA25649 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 06:47:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JvM17612; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:47:07 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970915.094941.12958.2.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <341C3E9D.619E@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-14,18-21 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 625 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: New drive design Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:47:32 -0400 On Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:44:30 -0700 "Kyle R. Mcallister" writes: >Greetings: > >A friend of mine at NASA told me about a new drive design they're >working on. Would you like to hear it? Its not FTL, I promise. > >Kyle Mcallister > Sure, tell us about it! Jim C. Sideline - Did anyone see the Family Channel Movie rerun this weekend? Doomsday Rock I think it was, anyway, was that ****BAD**** or what. If this pablum is what the public is going to buy into, we may never get to the stars, much less back to the moon! Pinky - Brain, are we about to become extinct? Brain - Errrrrrr,***CLANG*** From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 12:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["786" "Mon" "15" "September" "1997" "12:37:06" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "15" "Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA09858 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:37:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA09839 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:37:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA26078; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:37:05 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA24541; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:37:06 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199709151937.MAA24541@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 785 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:37:06 -0700 Okay - sounds like turning an asteroid into useful material might not be so tough. Next question: how expensive is it to send it to Earth orbit? I suppose there might be a few asteroids that come so close that it would only take the slightest nudge to put them in orbit around the Earth (or around the moon... maybe that would be safer if you miscaclulated?) But still, the average earth-orbit-crossing asteroid would probably take an awful lot of energy to do this. I'm sure not as much as it would take to launch it into orbit, but is the price at all comparable? Does anyone have a dollars/kilogram estimate for A) putting Earth materials into orbit twenty years from now and B) pulling asteroid materials into orbit twenty years from now. Enquiring minds want to know... Ken From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 12:53 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["155" "Mon" "15" "September" "1997" "14:53:10" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "7" "starship-design: Proton mass" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA16778 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:53:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA16722 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:53:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-82.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-82.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.82]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA12646 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 15:53:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <341DAE46.6AA1@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 154 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Proton mass Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:53:10 -0700 Greetings: As you aproach the speed of light, mass increases. Can mass be made to be 10,000 times its rest mass by going at relativistic velocity? Kyle From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 14:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["852" "Mon" "15" "September" "1997" "16:19:18" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "31" "RE: starship-design: New drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA02375 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:30:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA02350 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p1.gnt.com [204.49.68.206]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA25733 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:30:07 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:30:04 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCC1F4.9F5D3CC0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 851 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: New drive design Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:19:18 -0500 On Monday, September 15, 1997 8:48 AM, jimaclem@juno.com [SMTP:jimaclem@juno.com] wrote: > > On Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:44:30 -0700 "Kyle R. Mcallister" > writes: > >Greetings: > > > >A friend of mine at NASA told me about a new drive design they're > >working on. Would you like to hear it? Its not FTL, I promise. > > > >Kyle Mcallister > > > > Sure, tell us about it! > > Jim C. > > Sideline - Did anyone see the Family Channel Movie rerun this weekend? > Doomsday Rock I think it was, anyway, was that ****BAD**** or what. If > this pablum is what the public is going to buy into, we may never get to > the stars, much less back to the moon! > > Pinky - Brain, are we about to become extinct? > Brain - Errrrrrr,***CLANG*** I didn't see all of the movie, I don't even know how it ended. Which part was the pablum? Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 14:30 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1356" "Mon" "15" "September" "1997" "16:28:46" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "32" "RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA02437 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:30:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA02397 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:30:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p1.gnt.com [204.49.68.206]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA25753 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:30:16 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:30:14 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCC1F4.A4E540C0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1355 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:28:46 -0500 On Monday, September 15, 1997 2:37 PM, Ken Wharton [SMTP:wharton@physics.ucla.edu] wrote: > > Okay - sounds like turning an asteroid into useful material might not be > so > tough. Next question: how expensive is it to send it to Earth orbit? > I suppose there might be a few asteroids that come so close that it would > only take the slightest nudge to put them in orbit around the Earth (or > around the moon... maybe that would be safer if you miscaclulated?) > But still, the average earth-orbit-crossing asteroid would probably take > an awful lot of energy to do this. I'm sure not as much as it would take > to launch it into orbit, but is the price at all comparable? Does anyone > have a dollars/kilogram estimate for A) putting Earth materials into > orbit > twenty years from now and B) pulling asteroid materials into orbit twenty > years from now. Enquiring minds want to know... > > Ken Well, Maybe this is the ideal use for sails. All we are looking for is a relatively modest transfer orbit into SOLAR orbit at one of the LaGrangian points. That would be a better choice for industrial operations. Bear in mind that, speed isn't important for this application - CHEAP is. A mining vessel equipped to drill several anchor shafts to attach the sail to, one neat, compact little sail all folded up, and you are in business. Lee From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 16:27 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["454" "Mon" "15" "September" "1997" "16:27:53" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "12" "re: starship-design: Proton mass" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA24719 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:27:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA24671 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:27:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA29725; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:27:53 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA26212; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:27:53 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199709152327.QAA26212@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 453 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: re: starship-design: Proton mass Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:27:53 -0700 >As you aproach the speed of light, mass increases. Can mass be made to >be 10,000 times its rest mass by going at relativistic velocity? Sure-- if you can get it going fast enough. But keep in mind that the mass increase is relative as well; it will only increase its mass from the perspective of someone else. If you're riding along in a relativistic spaceship you never see your own mass increase; just the mass of the rest of the universe. Ken From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 17:18 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3614" "Tue" "16" "September" "1997" "02:17:18" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "75" "Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA12691 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 17:18:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA12579 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 17:18:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-004.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0xAlLM-001kOhC; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 02:18:16 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3613 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 02:17:18 +0100 Hi Kelly, >>Whether one can catch the fuel will of course greatly depend on the accuracy >>of the pellet-track and the strength of the magnetic fields. >>Isaac mentions using "fuel-drones" to enhance the accuracy, my guess is that >>one indeed can use these to deliver pellets with an accuracy of meters. > >Given that these drones would need to do that at up to 2.5 light months of >distence, after floating in space for a decade, I'ld be far less confident of >that. I can't answer this, maybe Isaac can convince you (and me) better. >>This [delayed fusion] indeed might be a problem, though I think that in >>theory the particles could be decelerated to fuse while still within the >>magnetic field. > >True, but that that involves a lot of delta-V on the ship in the wrong >direction. Given the deceleration of the fuel stream could need to be >greater then the acceleration possible by fusing the fuel. Ram scoops could >well be incapable of boosting themselves against their fuel stream. I think this is why Isaac almost turned purple on you ;) If I understand corrrectly: When the particles decelerate into the magnetic funnel, their kinetic energy will be turned into potential energy (ie. they will be pushed into a small area). As soon as the magnetic funnel widens again the process will be an exact reverse, the particles potential energy will be turned back into kinetic energy again (while accelerating the scoop in the right direction). The only losses I can imagine are those of increased radiation during the time that the particles were close together and thus were being hotter. >>>Also due to the high relative speed and the comparativly meager exaust >>>velocity, I'm not clear how you can gat any thrust out of the system. >> >>What other reasons than those you mention above would give a meager exhaust >>velocity? > >The maximum velocity of the fision products are limited by the physics of the >fusion reaction. That speed is, as I remember, about an order of magnitude >less then the maximum relative velocity of the fuel stream to the ship. At >best the fusion motor could only add a trivial amount of speed to the exaust >stream. If the fuel stream had to be decelerated to much, the exaust speed >could well be less then the initial fuel stream speed. As above, the particles will regain their initial velocity because the same process that slows them down, will also speed them up. If somewhere in the middle you add some energy, you may speed them up to just a bit more than their initial velocity. >>>I think the relative velocities would give a 1 to 8 to 1 to 15 angle. >>>Pretty hard to use in a magnetiv rocket nozzel. >> >>The intake velocity and exhaust velocity are probably rather similar, since >>the fusion reaction will likely add only a little bit of velocity. So both >>intake and exhaust nozzle have a similar geometry. The angle depends on how >>far the magnetic field can extend. A longer exhaust nozzle means more time >>for the plasma to expand and thus a smaller angle can be used. > >Not really. The intake has to be very broughd to scoop up the dispersed >stream. So it needs to be wide, and presumably short to limit the power and >structural loads. I think I misunderstood your angle notations. You may want to explain them. I'm not so sure if we can compress the plasma much faster than it can expand. In the case that the plasma can expand faster than we can compress it, the intake has to be than the maximal size of the exhaust nozzle. However this is becoming so practical that 'I' don't have the answers, you've to ask Isaac. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 17:19 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["231" "Tue" "16" "September" "1997" "02:17:17" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "9" "Re: starship-design: The mail" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA13211 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 17:19:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA13078 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 17:19:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-004.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0xAlLK-001kOgC; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 02:18:14 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 230 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: The mail Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 02:17:17 +0100 >I get occasional mail from folks who like the LIT Web. Is anyone interested >in reading it? It didn't occur to me before, and no one asked, so I hadn't >been. But I thought I should ask. I'm interested to know too. Timothy From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 15 17:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["857" "Mon" "15" "September" "1997" "19:57:52" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "23" "Re: starship-design: Proton mass" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA26058 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 17:58:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA26044 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 17:58:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-82.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-72.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.72]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA10370 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 20:58:05 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <341DF5AF.1B6@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199709152327.QAA26212@watt> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 856 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Proton mass Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 19:57:52 -0700 Ken Wharton wrote: > > >As you aproach the speed of light, mass increases. Can mass be made to > >be 10,000 times its rest mass by going at relativistic velocity? > > Sure-- if you can get it going fast enough. But keep in mind that the > mass increase is relative as well; it will only increase its mass from > the perspective of someone else. If you're riding along in a relativistic > spaceship you never see your own mass increase; just the mass of the rest > of the universe. > > Ken So, you're saying that if I had a weight attatched to the end of a rod (just an example) and swung it around at 99.9999+C, it's weight would increase as percieved by me? If so, thats good. Note: Actually, The rod and weight would probably be destroyed by trying to sling them that fast. Unless they were made out of something like neutronium. Kyle Mcallister From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 16 07:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1388" "Tue" "16" "September" "1997" "09:54:47" "-0400" "jimaclem@juno.com" "jimaclem@juno.com" nil "45" "Re: starship-design: New drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA01229 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 07:00:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from x18.boston.juno.com (x18.boston.juno.com [205.231.101.29]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA01218 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 07:00:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jimaclem@juno.com) by x18.boston.juno.com (queuemail) id JBZ21281; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 09:56:18 EDT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <19970916.100019.13494.1.jimaclem@juno.com> References: <01BCC1F4.9F5D3CC0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-23,26-27,29-30,35-36,39-43 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: jimaclem@juno.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1387 From: jimaclem@juno.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: New drive design Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 09:54:47 -0400 On Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:19:18 -0500 "L. Parker" writes: >On Monday, September 15, 1997 8:48 AM, jimaclem@juno.com >[SMTP:jimaclem@juno.com] wrote: >> Sideline - Did anyone see the Family Channel Movie rerun this >weekend? >> Doomsday Rock I think it was, anyway, was that ****BAD**** or what. > If >> this pablum is what the public is going to buy into, we may never >get to >> the stars, much less back to the moon! >> >I didn't see all of the movie, I don't even know how it ended. Which >part >was the pablum? > >Lee > > Okay, here goes. 1: The asteroid wont even hit Earth, until, lo and behold it collides with a comet that happens to be passing by, which of course alters its course. 2: The statement of an astronomer tracking it, five minutes to impact, 25000 mile out. Works out to 300,000 miles per hour 3: I don't remember what the stated size was, but we launch a Titan missile to intercept, and the Russians launch something similar. The two impact the asteroid at well beyond the orbit of the Hubble (actually showed them passing it, slow enough to see it of course!) and vaporize the darn thing! No debris to hit Earth of course. Now, I know that its perfectly possible for an asteroid to hit us, but the science mistakes in this were glaring. Makes us all look bad to those who don't know any better. Jim C. Duck and cover! From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 16 15:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["161" "Tue" "16" "September" "1997" "18:52:01" "-0300" "AntonioCTRocha" "arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br" nil "8" "starship-design: Extrasolar Planets Sites" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA13801 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 15:00:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br [200.252.253.1]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA13772 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 15:00:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bsb.nutecnet.com.br ([200.252.29.119]) by srv1-bsb.bsb.nutecnet.com.br (8.8.5/SCA-6.6) with ESMTP id VAA11758 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:54:06 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <341EFF80.9B5D31CD@bsb.nutecnet.com.br> Organization: is unrealistic X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: AntonioCTRocha Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 160 From: AntonioCTRocha Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Extrasolar Planets Sites Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 18:52:01 -0300 Found this site (and others) on extrasolar planets and their detection. Thought it might be of interest. http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/afoe/espd.html From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 16 19:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2046" "Tue" "16" "September" "1997" "20:26:20" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "48" "RE: starship-design: New drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA09686 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:10:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA09670 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:10:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p39.gnt.com [204.49.68.244]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA03425 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:10:43 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:10:38 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCC2E4.FB9F89C0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2045 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: New drive design Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 20:26:20 -0500 On Tuesday, September 16, 1997 8:55 AM, jimaclem@juno.com [SMTP:jimaclem@juno.com] wrote: > > Okay, here goes. > > 1: The asteroid wont even hit Earth, until, lo and behold it collides > with a comet that happens to be passing by, which of course alters its > course. > > 2: The statement of an astronomer tracking it, five minutes to impact, > 25000 mile out. Works out to 300,000 miles per hour > > 3: I don't remember what the stated size was, but we launch a Titan > missile to intercept, and the Russians launch something similar. The two > impact the asteroid at well beyond the orbit of the Hubble (actually > showed them passing it, slow enough to see it of course!) and vaporize > the darn thing! No debris to hit Earth of course. > > Now, I know that its perfectly possible for an asteroid to hit us, but > the science mistakes in this were glaring. Makes us all look bad to > those who don't know any better. > > Jim C. > > Duck and cover! Gee, I thought it was the Australian aborigine predicting it 2,000 years in advance! Course, I've sort of gotten inured to SF movies treatment of fact and gotten used to overlooking there foibles. As for the rest of it well...let's try this on for size. It is fairly well accepted that there are ten rocks out there for every one we know of. If a known large asteroid on a near miss were to collide with an unknown but relatively dense asteroid, the collision COULD produce sufficient change in its orbit to cause it to impact Earth, BUT even so, it would have to occur far enough away as to give us PLENTY of time to se it coming. There is no way a relatively light comet is going to cause this to happen in the time frame presented. Even then, we might want to think twice before attempting this. Fact of the matter is the resulting cloud of small asteroids would cause more damage than the big one in the long run. Unless we can VAPORIZE the asteroid, this would be a bad move. Who wants a trillion tons of RADIOACTIVE asteroid raining down on their hemisphere? Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 16 19:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["420" "Tue" "16" "September" "1997" "20:49:47" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "19" "RE: starship-design: Extrasolar Planets Sites" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA09689 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:10:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA09671 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:10:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p39.gnt.com [204.49.68.244]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA03440 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:10:48 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:10:45 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCC2E4.FF74ADA0.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 419 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Extrasolar Planets Sites Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 20:49:47 -0500 On Tuesday, September 16, 1997 4:52 PM, AntonioCTRocha [SMTP:arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br] wrote: > Found this site (and others) on extrasolar planets and their detection. > Thought it might be of interest. > > http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/afoe/espd.html > Antonio, Try this one: http://www.empire.net/~whatmoug/Extrasolar/extrasolar_visions.html There are also some really interesting links from here. Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 16 19:37 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2644" "Tue" "16" "September" "1997" "21:37:22" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "71" "starship-design: New Drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA15361 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:37:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA15348 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:37:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-108.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-91.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.91]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA11259 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 22:37:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <341F5E82.1E16@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 2643 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: New Drive design Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:37:22 -0700 Here it is: (Message from Frank Howard, used with permission) If you swing a mass on a string around in a circle, the mass is pulled outward by centrifugal force. The swinging of the mass in a circle caused an angular acceleration on the mass pulling it outward. The angular acceleration [feet/second squared] is equal to angular velocity [radians/second] squared times the radius [ft.] of swing. The acceleration force [lb.] outward equals the mass [lb.sec.sq./ft.] times the angular acceleration [ft./sec.sq.]. If the radius is increased, the angular force is increased in direct proportion. Consider a stationary gear with another gear with the same diameter rotating around it. Place a mass at the outer side of the rotating gear. The locus of the mass as it rotates has a greater radius on one side than the other. It can be plotted as x=acos(A)-1)sin(A) and y=sin(A) where A equals the angle of rotation. If four gears are place 90 degrees apart, and the forces from the masses are summed, a constant force with an amplitude of 2 is produced. The mechanisms could be driven by electric motors and constant propulsion force and acceleration could be produced. I have been talking to one of my directors about using small modules powered by these centrifugal drives to rescue satellites from falling out of orbit. The centrifugal drive modules could be stored in an small unmanned space station covered with solar cells. NASA is too involved in organizational political wars and struggle for survival to think about these things. A more efficient process not requiring moving machinery would be to chill down superconductive material with cryogenics. Resistance is directly proportional to temperature. Current is inversely proportional to resistance, so the super conductor could produce a strong magnetic field. Atomic particles such a protons could be accelerated with a positive charge from the super conductor with each rotation though a curved pipe line. The mass of the protons would increase with velocity. m=mo/(1-v^2/c^2)^.5 where: m=mass of traveling object mo=mass of still object v=velocity of mass c=velocity of light as v approached c, m approaches infinity. The particles could be sent down a path with a large radius of curvature providing acceleration. Space vehicle could be created that would be completely silent. Action reaction vehicles could be used to overcome gravity. That was some stuff I was dreaming about. I have probably left you bored stiff. Most of my work at NASA has been on cryogenics. NASA put some of it is on the net. Frank Howard (The man at NASA who sent me this) From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 17 11:32 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3574" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "11:32:42" "-0700" "Ken Wharton" "wharton@physics.ucla.edu" nil "78" "starship-design: Re: New Drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA09968 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:32:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from physics.ucla.edu (physics.ucla.edu [128.97.23.13]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA09951 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:32:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from watt by physics.ucla.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA23840; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:32:42 -0700 Received: by watt (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA07520; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:32:42 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199709171832.LAA07520@watt> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3573 From: wharton@physics.ucla.edu (Ken Wharton) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: New Drive design Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:32:42 -0700 Kyle, Unfortunately, the saying "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." applies to Mr. Howard's idea. >If you swing a mass on a string around in a circle, the mass is pulled >outward by centrifugal force. The swinging of the mass in a circle >caused >an angular acceleration on the mass pulling it outward. The angular >acceleration [feet/second squared] is equal to angular velocity >[radians/second] squared times the radius [ft.] of swing. The >acceleration >force [lb.] outward equals the mass [lb.sec.sq./ft.] times the angular >acceleration [ft./sec.sq.]. This is incorrect. As other members have stated in response to an earlier question about centrifugal force, it doesn't exist. There is no force pulling masses on a string outward. If there was, the masses would indeed go outward; they actually go inward, pulled toward the center by whatever force is causing the mass to spin around in the first place. That inward force is called centripital force, and it is real. For the mass on the string example, you are supplying tension on the string which pulls the mass inward. Because the mass is already travelling sideways, it comes toward you but also moves to the side, forming a perfect circle if the tension is correct. There's no outward force. Once you stop supplying the tension, the ball does indeed fly away, but A) it leaves with the velocity that it had at that moment; no additional forces come into play, and B) it doesn't fly Outward; it flies off at a tangent. >If the radius is increased, the angular force is increased in direct >proportion. Consider a stationary gear with another gear with the same >diameter rotating around it. Place a mass at the outer side of the >rotating gear. The locus of the mass as it rotates has a greater radius >on >one side than the other. It can be plotted as x=acos(A)-1)sin(A) and >y=sin(A) where A equals the angle of rotation. If four gears are place >90 >degrees apart, and the forces from the masses are summed, a constant >force >with an amplitude of 2 is produced. The mechanisms could be driven by >electric >motors and constant propulsion force and acceleration could be produced. Of course, you could test this theory by standing on a skateboard and swinging a mass around your head, lengthening the string on one side of your body and reeling it in on the other side. If there's a net force you can propel yourself in this manner. You can't do this, and this is why: An object with no forces acting on it can continue to spin, but it will only spin at its center of mass. And, of course, an object spinning at its center of mass will have all of its forces balance; it won't start accelerating in any particular direction. No net forces in, no net forces out. If you want to spin something off-center (as Mr. Howard suggests), you need to supply a force. A centripital force, to be precise, such as the earlier tension in a string. Mr. Howard's idea ignores this force you need to put in to spin something off-center, (which, in fact, is the only real force in the whole problem). It exactly balances his proposed "acceleration", and in a rotating coordinate system where nothing seems to move, there is a net force of zero on the whole system. Same with magnetic fields; they do no work and can't speed up a proton; just change its direction. Unfortunately, the laws of physics are against us on this one. If there is an easy way to get to the stars we'll find it in new physics, not through 400-year old mechanics. Ken From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 17 15:03 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["5253" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "17:03:20" "-0700" "Kyle R. Mcallister" "stk@sunherald.infi.net" nil "112" "Re: starship-design: Re: New Drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA11815 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:03:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fh101.infi.net (fh101.infi.net [208.131.160.100]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA11792 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:03:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dcp2-75.gpt.infi.net (dcp2-106.gpt.infi.net [207.0.193.106]) by fh101.infi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA16081 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 18:03:32 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <34206C0A.4671@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199709171832.LAA07520@watt> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Length: 5252 From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: New Drive design Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 17:03:20 -0700 > > Kyle, > > Unfortunately, the saying "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably > is." applies to Mr. Howard's idea. Well, sometimes this saying is true, but not always. > > >If you swing a mass on a string around in a circle, the mass is pulled > >outward by centrifugal force. The swinging of the mass in a circle > >caused > >an angular acceleration on the mass pulling it outward. The angular > >acceleration [feet/second squared] is equal to angular velocity > >[radians/second] squared times the radius [ft.] of swing. The > >acceleration > >force [lb.] outward equals the mass [lb.sec.sq./ft.] times the angular > >acceleration [ft./sec.sq.]. > > This is incorrect. As other members have stated in response to an > earlier question about centrifugal force, it doesn't exist. There is no > force pulling masses on a string outward. If there was, the masses would > indeed go outward; they actually go inward, pulled toward the center by > whatever force is causing the mass to spin around in the first place. > That inward force is called centripital force, and it is real. There is if you believe in the existence of an Ether. Actually, there is a force on the mass pulling it outward, called inertia. And we cant even begin to explain it because we don't know what it is. Interactions with ether? Something else? If there is no force pulling outwards, drum rotator habitats won't work. You'd be slammed against the side of the wall, not pulled toward the outside. Clearly, centrifugal force is real. Simply misunderstood. > > For the mass on the string example, you are supplying tension on the > string which pulls the mass inward. Because the mass is already > travelling sideways, it comes toward you but also moves to the side, > forming a perfect circle if the tension is correct. There's no outward > force. > > Once you stop supplying the tension, the ball does indeed fly away, but > A) it leaves with the velocity that it had at that moment; no additional > forces come into play, and B) it doesn't fly Outward; it flies off at a > tangent. > > >If the radius is increased, the angular force is increased in direct > >proportion. Consider a stationary gear with another gear with the same > >diameter rotating around it. Place a mass at the outer side of the > >rotating gear. The locus of the mass as it rotates has a greater radius > >on > >one side than the other. It can be plotted as x=acos(A)-1)sin(A) and > >y=sin(A) where A equals the angle of rotation. If four gears are place > >90 > >degrees apart, and the forces from the masses are summed, a constant > >force > >with an amplitude of 2 is produced. The mechanisms could be driven by > >electric > >motors and constant propulsion force and acceleration could be produced. > > Of course, you could test this theory by standing on a skateboard and > swinging a mass around your head, lengthening the string on one side of > your body and reeling it in on the other side. If there's a net force > you can propel yourself in this manner. Crude analogy, but I might just try it. But actually this won't work. As Frank said, you need four, themselves being spun around an axis. Of course, if I got it to work, no one would listen, saying something like: "It acted as a fan" I do it in a vacuum: "It is a simple trick played on you, or something or other" I do it 50 years from now inside a spaceship: "Hmmm...interesting". > > You can't do this, and this is why: An object with no forces acting on > it can continue to spin, but it will only spin at its center of mass. > And, of course, an object spinning at its center of mass will have all of > its forces balance; it won't start accelerating in any particular > direction. No net forces in, no net forces out. Center of mass can be altered slightly, and very inefficiently by rotating superconductor rings. Heard of Eugene Podkletnov? But you cant use a spherical object! Toroidal is needed. > > If you want to spin something off-center (as Mr. Howard suggests), you > need to supply a force. A centripital force, to be precise, such as the > earlier tension in a string. Mr. Howard's idea ignores this force you > need to put in to spin something off-center, (which, in fact, is the only > real force in the whole problem). It exactly balances his proposed > "acceleration", and in a rotating coordinate system where nothing seems > to move, there is a net force of zero on the whole system. > > Same with magnetic fields; they do no work and can't speed up a proton; > just change its direction. Then how do particle accelerators work? They have BIG magnets in them. And protons going relativistic speeds. > > Unfortunately, the laws of physics are against us on this one. If there > is an easy way to get to the stars we'll find it in new physics, not > through 400-year old mechanics. 'Laws' of physics change just about every 50 years. The reason we call them laws instead of "what we believe to be correct" is simply ego, not wanting to see our pet theories disrupted. I know, I used to be that way. And I was stupid for being that way. Kyle Mcallister P.S.: I haven't seen any 'new' physics here, or didn't I try to post some? Remember Galileo and the Clerics... From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 17 15:36 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["6104" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "15:36:39" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "119" "Re: starship-design: Re: New Drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA25045 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:36:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA25031 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:36:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (tzadkiel.efn.org [198.68.17.19]) by wakko (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA17733; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:34:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA25158; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:36:39 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: <199709172236.PAA25158@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <34206C0A.4671@sunherald.infi.net> References: <199709171832.LAA07520@watt> <34206C0A.4671@sunherald.infi.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 6103 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: "Kyle R. Mcallister" Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: New Drive design Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:36:39 -0700 Kyle R. Mcallister writes: > Ken Wharton wrote: > > Kyle, > > > > Unfortunately, the saying "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably > > is." applies to Mr. Howard's idea. > > Well, sometimes this saying is true, but not always. It's practically a law of physics unto itself, Kyle. > There is if you believe in the existence of an Ether. Actually, there is > a force on the mass pulling it outward, called inertia. And we cant even > begin to explain it because we don't know what it is. Interactions with > ether? Something else? If there is no force pulling outwards, drum > rotator habitats won't work. You'd be slammed against the side of the > wall, not pulled toward the outside. Clearly, centrifugal force is real. > Simply misunderstood. Few people believe in the ether any more because it turns out to not only be unobservable but irrelevant to current formulations of physical theory. "Centrifugal force" is an artifact of trying to view things from the accelerating frame of an object in continuous rotational motion. You apply centripetal acceleration to an object to keep it in continuous rotational motion. If you then sit on the rotating object you experience the continuous acceleration, which in that frame feels like outward acceleration. But when the centripetal acceleration finishes, you and the accelerating object fly off in a straight line tangent to the direction you were going before the acceleration finished, and you become instantly weightless. We may not be able to derive inertia from other principles but we know for damn sure exactly how it acts. There is absolutely no reason for us to doubt existing physical theories that explain exactly how continuously rotating objects behave. The biggest problem with Mr. Howard's proposal is that it violates conservation of momentum. Other "pseudo-reactionless" drives end up transferring momentum to something to produce thrust -- photons, neutrinos, or even gravity waves. Again, Kyle, your ignorance of physics is not a virtue. Something isn't possible just because you don't understand why it's impossible. > Crude analogy, but I might just try it. But actually this won't work. As > Frank said, you need four, themselves being spun around an axis. Of > course, if I got it to work, no one would listen, saying something like: > "It acted as a fan" I do it in a vacuum: "It is a simple trick played on > you, or something or other" I do it 50 years from now inside a > spaceship: "Hmmm...interesting". We have no reason to believe that Mr. Howard's construct will do what it thinks he does, because it is completely inconsistent with observed physical behavior. > > You can't do this, and this is why: An object with no forces acting on > > it can continue to spin, but it will only spin at its center of mass. > > And, of course, an object spinning at its center of mass will have all of > > its forces balance; it won't start accelerating in any particular > > direction. No net forces in, no net forces out. > > Center of mass can be altered slightly, and very inefficiently by > rotating superconductor rings. Heard of Eugene Podkletnov? But you cant > use a spherical object! Toroidal is needed. The claim that rotating superconducting disks/rings can somehow alter mass has in no way been substantiated, and many people have attempted to replicate the experiment. In any case, you can wiggle around your center of mass all you want, but unless that somehow results in momentum transfer to something that is carried away from the rotating system, the center of mass will not change momentum itself. > Then how do particle accelerators work? They have BIG magnets in them. > And protons going relativistic speeds. It's really not accurate to say that relativistic protons change mass. The notion of "mass" being the same as "energy" has fallen out of favor because it does not promote accurate physical reasoning. A relativistic proton can gain energy and momentum without limit, but its mass does not change. > > Unfortunately, the laws of physics are against us on this one. If there > > is an easy way to get to the stars we'll find it in new physics, not > > through 400-year old mechanics. > > 'Laws' of physics change just about every 50 years. The reason we call > them laws instead of "what we believe to be correct" is simply ego, not > wanting to see our pet theories disrupted. I know, I used to be that > way. And I was stupid for being that way. As has been pointed out before, and seemingly has to be pointed out again and again, these changes in physical understanding have been refinements, not complete invalidations of what was known before. Einstein did not invalidate Newton in the realms that Newton's laws of physics had been verified in up to that point; the physics community in general was very reluctant to accept Einstein's theories not so much because it was full of egotistical people but because Newton's laws of physics had been extremely well tested, and Einstein's had not. Once experimental evidence showed that nature behaved more in accordance with Einstein's theories than Newton's in the realms where Einstein's theories predicted a significant difference in results, physicists began to accept Einstein's theories. But Newton's physics is still taught and used in many fields where speeds and energies are too low to produce any measurable difference between Newtonian and relativistic analysis, which makes perfect sense since Newtonian physics can be derived directly from relativistic physics at low velocities and energies. If you want to talk about ego, Kyle, your continued belief that the universe will somehow make it easy for you to do the things you want to do is what's egotistical. The universe works the way it works, not the way you want it to work. We're not arguing with you because you're disrupting our "pet theories" but because you're arguing against years of tested observation and physical theories that are as consistent with those observations as we know how to make them. From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 17 20:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4402" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "23:56:50" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "107" "Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA06664 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:57:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout16.mail.aol.com (emout16.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.42]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA06630 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:57:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA06014; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:56:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970917235554_1458349412@emout16.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4401 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:56:50 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/16/97 3:33:11 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) wrote: >Hi Kelly, > >>>Whether one can catch the fuel will of course greatly depend on the accuracy >>>of the pellet-track and the strength of the magnetic fields. >>>Isaac mentions using "fuel-drones" to enhance the accuracy, my guess is that >>>one indeed can use these to deliver pellets with an accuracy of meters. >> >>Given that these drones would need to do that at up to 2.5 light months of >>distence, after floating in space for a decade, I'ld be far less confident of >>that. > >I can't answer this, maybe Isaac can convince you (and me) better. > >>>This [delayed fusion] indeed might be a problem, though I think that in >>>theory the particles could be decelerated to fuse while still within the >>>magnetic field. >> >>True, but that that involves a lot of delta-V on the ship in the wrong >>direction. Given the deceleration of the fuel stream could need to be >>greater then the acceleration possible by fusing the fuel. Ram scoops could >>well be incapable of boosting themselves against their fuel stream. > >I think this is why Isaac almost turned purple on you ;) >If I understand corrrectly: When the particles decelerate into the magnetic >funnel, their kinetic energy will be turned into potential energy (ie. they >will be pushed into a small area). As soon as the magnetic funnel widens >again the process will be an exact reverse, the particles potential energy >will be turned back into kinetic energy again (while accelerating the scoop >in the right direction). The only losses I can imagine are those of >increased radiation during the time that the particles were close together >and thus were being hotter. Thats pretty iffy. That assumes a lot of very heavy power transfer through the field systems and some suspiciously clean magnetic control. Fusion would be a trivial trick in comparison. >>>>Also due to the high relative speed and the comparativly meager exaust >>>>velocity, I'm not clear how you can gat any thrust out of the system. >>> >>>What other reasons than those you mention above would give a meager exhaust >>>velocity? >> >>The maximum velocity of the fision products are limited by the physics of the >>fusion reaction. That speed is, as I remember, about an order of magnitude >>less then the maximum relative velocity of the fuel stream to the ship. At >>best the fusion motor could only add a trivial amount of speed to the exaust >>stream. If the fuel stream had to be decelerated to much, the exaust speed >>could well be less then the initial fuel stream speed. > >As above, the particles will regain their initial velocity because the same >process that slows them down, will also speed them up. >If somewhere in the middle you add some energy, you may speed them up to >just a bit more than their initial velocity. I find it hard to visualize how the fields will be able to do this so automatically. >>>>I think the relative velocities would give a 1 to 8 to 1 to 15 angle. >>>>Pretty hard to use in a magnetiv rocket nozzel. >>> >>>The intake velocity and exhaust velocity are probably rather similar, since >>>the fusion reaction will likely add only a little bit of velocity. So both >>>intake and exhaust nozzle have a similar geometry. The angle depends on how >>>far the magnetic field can extend. A longer exhaust nozzle means more time >>>for the plasma to expand and thus a smaller angle can be used. >> >>Not really. The intake has to be very wide to scoop up the dispersed >>stream. So it needs to be wide, and presumably short to limit the power and >>structural loads. > >I think I misunderstood your angle notations. You may want to explain them. Just noting that since the maximum lateral speed of the expanding exaust is the fusion product exaust stream speed. Since its at best about 1/10th the maximum fuel stream speed. The the tangent of the nozels expansion angle would need to be 1/10 or less. Pretty narow. >I'm not so sure if we can compress the plasma much faster than it can >expand. In the case that the plasma can expand faster than we can compress >it, the intake has to be than the maximal size of the exhaust nozzle. > >However this is becoming so practical that 'I' don't have the answers, >you've to ask Isaac. > >Timothy Also this topics going on long enough to be geting tedious. ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 17 20:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["992" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "23:57:09" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "24" "starship-design: Re: ul-c" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA06713 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:57:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout11.mail.aol.com (emout11.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.26]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA06702 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:57:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout11.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA03259 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:57:09 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970917235547_-829110044@emout11.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 991 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: ul-c Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:57:09 -0400 (EDT) ruiz-jose@usa.net In a message dated 9/8/97 1:23:18 PM, you wrote: >Mrs. Starks, >I was wondering if you could e-mail me some information on the latest >space propultion theories and if at all posible if you could send me an >old copy of Technical Report R-277 which was released in the 50's. I'm >not exactly sure what is in the report but all I can tell you is that >it may contain the answers to some old questions. I'd appretiate any >help you can give me. Well its Mr Starks, and I don't have any specific access to Technical reports (if they are government reports you could contact the government pronting office or a gov printing store in your area). As to theories of space propulsion. Ignoring speculations by physists, were still stuck with rockets. Several types are being kicked around. Nuclear, Fusion electric, plasma, solar thermal. Books have been written about them, so the questions a little open ended for a E-mail. What's your specific interest? Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 17 20:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2664" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "23:57:45" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "59" "starship-design: Latest letter > " "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA06828 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:58:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout06.mail.aol.com (emout06.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.97]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA06805 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:58:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout06.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA17502 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:57:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970917235539_-1999745308@emout06.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2663 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Latest letter > Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:57:45 -0400 (EDT) Re: Your Starship Project. m.hasted@prodgrp.demon.co.uk In a message dated 9/11/97 4:04:57 AM, you wrote: >Kelly, > >I have read with great interest the details on your website of starship >design. Firstly I must say how well all of the information was presented, it >was refreshing to read a scientific document that did not heap on loads of >statistics and calculations. But it was quite suprising for me to learn that >such a craft would be feasable by the year 2050. I always belived that this >sort of expedition would take place much later, possibly not until the 22nd >century. > >Don't get me wrong, I'm no scientist and my knowledge of physics and >mathematics is somewhat lacking, but my friends (university graduates, but >don't think that makes them experts) tell me that such a journey is >impossible. I argue the case that it is impossible with todays technology >but who knows what we will have 20 years into the future. One friend of mine >claims that to reach the nearest galaxy to ourselves would require all the >resources we have in the solar system. Is this correct? > >Either way, your project has opened my eyes to the possibilities of >interstellar travel. > >It was also good to find a site that covers space travel without mentioning >Star Trek! > >Thanks again > >Mark Hasted Glad you liked the site Mark. Yes, the LIT Starship design group does (we still have corespondence) try very hard to come up with practical concepts using extreamly likely mid 21st century technologies. No warp drive, nanotech, mass conversion, etc. This has been hard for all involved, who see how even a slight breakthrough in physics or ultra technolgy could vastly simplify such a project. After all the one thing we can be sure of is that the real physics and technology of 2050 will have a lot of completly revolutionary, and completly unanticipated parts. In a way we like to think out concepts are like the British interplanetary societies turn of the century project to devise a concept of a moon landing. It was very crude compared to the actual apollo project. But it did show the idea was possible. Our concepts (Explorer, Fuel/Sail, M.A.R.S., etc) could open the near by stars, are technically possible, but seem far to expensive and impractical for reasonable use. (Thou Apollo also depended on an extrodanary political need to drive it.) No doubt the expectable unpredictable technical progress over the next few decades will make these concepts seem ludicrusly crude and expensive. Several theories are already showing such possibilities. But we're pleased to have at least come up with ways that could work. Kelly Starks From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 17 20:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["838" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "23:58:06" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "24" "Re: starship-design: New Drive design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA06892 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:58:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA06881 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:58:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA04473; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:58:06 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970917235550_215779428@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 837 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stk@sunherald.infi.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: New Drive design Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:58:06 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/17/97 3:12:26 AM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (Kyle R. Mcallister) wrote: >Here it is: (Message from Frank Howard, used with permission) > >If you swing a mass on a string around in a circle, the mass is pulled >outward by centrifugal force. The swinging of the mass in a circle >caused >an angular acceleration on the mass pulling it outward. The angular >acceleration [feet/second squared] is equal to angular velocity >[radians/second] squared times the radius [ft.] of swing. The >acceleration >force [lb.] outward equals the mass [lb.sec.sq./ft.] times the angular >acceleration [ft./sec.sq.]. ----- At best he's reinvented the flywheel, but wraped it in so much equation b.s. that its hard to recognize. Definatly the sign of an idiot. Hopefully he's not in an important position at NASA. Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 17 20:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1961" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "23:58:13" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "39" "Re: Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA06911 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:58:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout10.mail.aol.com (emout10.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.25]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA06902 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:58:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout10.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA15421; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:58:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970917235544_962141156@emout10.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1960 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: wharton@physics.ucla.edu, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:58:13 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/15/97 1:37:25 PM, wharton@physics.ucla.edu wrote: >Okay - sounds like turning an asteroid into useful material might not be so >tough. Next question: how expensive is it to send it to Earth orbit? >I suppose there might be a few asteroids that come so close that it would >only take the slightest nudge to put them in orbit around the Earth (or >around the moon... maybe that would be safer if you miscaclulated?) >But still, the average earth-orbit-crossing asteroid would probably take >an awful lot of energy to do this. I'm sure not as much as it would take >to launch it into orbit, but is the price at all comparable? Does anyone >have a dollars/kilogram estimate for A) putting Earth materials into orbit >twenty years from now and B) pulling asteroid materials into orbit twenty >years from now. Enquiring minds want to know... > >Ken Asteroids pass very close to earth all the time. TO DAMB CLOSE! NORAD reports an average of 25 kiloton plus atmospheric explosions a year from asteroids. One a few hundred meters across skimed the upper air over New Zealand a couple years back (would have been an H bomb sized blast if it would have hit). A kilometer or 2 per secound delta-V would place most in orbit. Less if you pick more carfully. That compares to about 8-9 kilometer per seound to get into earth orbit. But since you can use local water and solar pumped rockets for a steam rocket. Sound lower the costs. As for costs to orbit with near term equipment. A kerosine oxegen single statge to orbit should have fuel costs of about $20 per pound of cargo to orbit. Assuming heavy trafic to cur overhead costs that could run about twice that for launch costs. Of course their are some tricks you can pull to cut that cost down by maybe a factor of 10, but it adds a lot systems expenses. For comparison airline fare across the pacific runs about $10 a pound, and the space shuttle costs about $30,000 a pound. From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 18 06:04 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["803" "Wed" "17" "September" "1997" "19:35:58" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "21" "RE: starship-design: Extrasolar Planets Sites" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA24583 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 06:04:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA24572 for ; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 06:04:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p34.gnt.com [204.49.68.239]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA12903 for ; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 08:04:12 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 08:04:08 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCC409.70D22020.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 802 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: Extrasolar Planets Sites Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 19:35:58 -0500 On Wednesday, September 17, 1997 12:55 PM, AntonioCTRocha [SMTP:arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br] wrote: > Helo Lee, > Alas, my browser (Ntescape 4.2) kept hanging during some initial Java > applet there. Must be the ungodly mess of real-time widgets my machine > runs. > Did manage to access the directory, however, and found my way to Jean > Schneider's Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, which opened doors onto the > rest. > Lots of wonderful links with lots of useful stuff. > Thanks for the tip. > Antonio Too bad you weren't able to get into the site itself. It is very heavy graphics which may have been part of your problem. Real-time widgets? What the heck are you running? I can count the number of people with real-time systems, most of them are NASA or CIA. Lee From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 18 14:33 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["524" "Thu" "18" "September" "1997" "16:30:16" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "14" "starship-design: RE: Real Time Widgets" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA09094 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 14:33:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA09051 for ; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 14:33:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p45.gnt.com [204.49.68.250]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA10989 for ; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 16:33:37 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 16:33:35 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCC450.9BF53F20.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 523 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: RE: Real Time Widgets Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 16:30:16 -0500 On Thursday, September 18, 1997 2:00 PM, AntonioCTRocha [SMTP:arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br] wrote: > I might have expressed myself inappropriately. I mean that my humble > station logs events form the UPS, the phone-system, my company's net, > and the occasional alert from roaming employees. > That puts some strain on an already quirky Win95 client. :-[ Ahh, well if you are running Win95 it can hardly be considered real time, maybe fantasy time, or bed time, or story time, or... anything but real! Lee From owner-starship-design Sat Sep 20 13:00 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3625" "Sat" "20" "September" "1997" "21:59:47" "+0100" "Timothy van der Linden" "TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl" nil "74" "Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings?" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA24833 for starship-design-outgoing; Sat, 20 Sep 1997 13:00:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.tip.nl (helium.tip.nl [195.18.64.71]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA24823 for ; Sat, 20 Sep 1997 13:00:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hengelo-030.std.pop.tip.nl by helium.tip.nl with smtp (Smail3.2 #12) id m0xCVhr-001WqIC; Sat, 20 Sep 1997 22:00:43 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-Id: X-Sender: t596675@pop1.tip.nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3b4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 3624 From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Ramjet workings? Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 21:59:47 +0100 Kelly, >>I think this is why Isaac almost turned purple on you ;) >>If I understand corrrectly: When the particles decelerate into the magnetic >>funnel, their kinetic energy will be turned into potential energy (ie. they >>will be pushed into a small area). As soon as the magnetic funnel widens >>again the process will be an exact reverse, the particles potential energy >>will be turned back into kinetic energy again (while accelerating the scoop >>in the right direction). The only losses I can imagine are those of >>increased radiation during the time that the particles were close together >>and thus were being hotter. > >Thats pretty iffy. That assumes a lot of very heavy power transfer through >the field systems and some suspiciously clean magnetic control. Fusion would >be a trivial trick in comparison. I've no anwer to such engineering limits. If I had, I would have submitted a design myself long ago. (In a previous reply to Isaac, I too questioned him about the maximum strength of the superconducting magnets.) >>>The maximum velocity of the fision products are limited by the physics of the >>>fusion reaction. That speed is, as I remember, about an order of magnitude >>>less then the maximum relative velocity of the fuel stream to the ship. At >>>best the fusion motor could only add a trivial amount of speed to the >>>exaust stream. If the fuel stream had to be decelerated to much, the >>>exaust speed could well be less then the initial fuel stream speed. >> >>As above, the particles will regain their initial velocity because the same >>process that slows them down, will also speed them up. >>If somewhere in the middle you add some energy, you may speed them up to >>just a bit more than their initial velocity. > >I find it hard to visualize how the fields will be able to do this so >automatically. Well this is not so much an "automation" its more or less a property. It is simply the fact that compressed particles will expand as soon as they can. So when the funnel widens, the particles cloud will expand (turning it potential energy into kinetic energy). >>>>>I think the relative velocities would give a 1 to 8 to 1 to 15 angle. >>>>>Pretty hard to use in a magnetiv rocket nozzel. >>>> >>>>The intake velocity and exhaust velocity are probably rather similar, >>>>since the fusion reaction will likely add only a little bit of velocity. >>>>So both intake and exhaust nozzle have a similar geometry. The angle >>>>depends on how far the magnetic field can extend. A longer exhaust >>>>nozzle means more time for the plasma to expand and thus a smaller >>>>angle can be used. >>> >>>Not really. The intake has to be very wide to scoop up the dispersed >>>stream. So it needs to be wide, and presumably short to limit the power >>>and structural loads. >> >>I think I misunderstood your angle notations. You may want to explain them. > >Just noting that since the maximum lateral speed of the expanding exaust is >the fusion product exaust stream speed. Since its at best about 1/10th the >maximum fuel stream speed. The the tangent of the nozels expansion angle >would need to be 1/10 or less. Pretty narow. Yes this seems to be right. I don't understand though why such angles would be hard to generate with a magnetic field. Inside a coil having a direct current (DC) the magnetic field is along the axis of the coil and thus the angle is zero. I don't think the magnetic field far outside the coil (not even a superconducting one) will be strong enough for our purposes. In other words the funnel is completely within the material parts of the engine. Timothy From owner-starship-design Sun Sep 21 19:58 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["705" "Sun" "21" "September" "1997" "22:57:58" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "22" "Re: starship-design: RE: Real Time Widgets" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA11238 for starship-design-outgoing; Sun, 21 Sep 1997 19:58:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emin17.mail.aol.com (emout32.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.15]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA11118 for ; Sun, 21 Sep 1997 19:58:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emin17.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA10529; Sun, 21 Sep 1997 22:57:58 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970921225422_-2032362790@emout17.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 704 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: RE: Real Time Widgets Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 22:57:58 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/18/97 3:34:21 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net wrote: >On Thursday, September 18, 1997 2:00 PM, AntonioCTRocha >[SMTP:arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br] wrote: >> I might have expressed myself inappropriately. I mean that my humble >> station logs events form the UPS, the phone-system, my company's net, >> and the occasional alert from roaming employees. >> That puts some strain on an already quirky Win95 client. :-[ > >Ahh, well if you are running Win95 it can hardly be considered real time, >maybe fantasy time, or bed time, or story time, or... anything but real! > > >Lee A slave of the wintel. You must banish him from the good neighborhoods in cyberspace. ;) Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 22 18:14 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["432" "Mon" "22" "September" "1997" "17:49:50" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "15" "RE: starship-design: RE: Real Time Widgets" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA05747 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 18:14:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA05680 for ; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 18:14:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p30.gnt.com [204.49.68.235]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA24577 for ; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 20:14:23 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 20:14:19 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCC794.1BB0F380.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 431 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: RE: starship-design: RE: Real Time Widgets Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 17:49:50 -0500 On Monday, September 22, 1997 10:50 AM, AntonioCTRocha [SMTP:arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br] wrote: > > Conan had his wheel. I have my company's Win95. But all comes to those > who > wait. [:-) To be fair, Win95 isn't really all that bad, I have seen some operating system that were REALLY bad, does anyone remember "System shutdown in 30 seconds, save all files and log off"? Or, "WARNING, Operator headspace error"... Lee From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 23 19:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4433" "Tue" "23" "September" "1997" "22:00:37" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "73" "starship-design: Re: starship design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA24188 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 19:01:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA24175 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 19:01:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA02814; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 22:00:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970923215620_116400594@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4432 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jdavis@xroadstx.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: starship design Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 22:00:37 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/23/97 3:43:57 PM, you wrote: >I know about a type of ramjet starship that might be an achievable >goal.I propose the following conceptual design. Use breeder type nuclear >fission rectors to generate a few megawatts to a few gigawatts of >electricity to power a ramjet starship.Use ultraviolet laser beams to >ionize hydrogen gas in the path of the starship. Then use elecrostatic >ramscoops to collect from one to a hundred grams of interstellar >protons. An electrostatic ramscoop uses a negative elecrostatic field to >attract interstellar protons and pull them inside the engine. >The stength of of the natural electric field in interstellar space is 1. >x 10(-19) electon volts . An elecrostatic ramscoop's ion collection >radius is the distance at which the electric field of the ramscoop is >greater in strength then the natural electric field of interstellar >protons. The strength of a magnetic or electric field in a vacume >declines in proportion to the inverse square of the the change in >distance from the source of the field. This means that a ramscoop >electric field of -10,000 electron volts for example will be stronger >the the interstellar electric field strength for a radius of from >100,000 kilometers to possibly millions of kilometers from the >ramscoop.This ramscoop can be made of a lightweight material such as >aluminium metal in the form of a grid or screen. a mere ten kilowatts of >electricity could place a -10,000 volt elecric charge on the aluminium >screen to attract interstellar protons into the engine. > These interstellar protons would then be used as reaction mass in ion >or plasma rocket engines. These electric engines would accelerate the >protons into a high velocity exchaust jet which would propell the >starship. A beam of protons if accelerated through a a one million volt >electrostic field inside of an ion engine would obtain a velocity of >10,000 to 15000 kilometers pers second. This results in an ion engine >specific impulse of 1000,000 to 1,500,000 seconds. A plasma engine would >heat the the ionized hydrogen propellant collected by the ramscoop to >fusion range temperatures (10,000,000 degrees c to 100, 000, 000 >degrees c ) , with a high energy elecric arc or laser beam . Then the >plasma would be exchausted through an elecromagnetic nozzle to generate >thrust to propell the starship. Inside this superconducting >elecromagnetic nozzle, electromagnetic body forces will also provide an >additional acceleration to the plasma via the lorentz force. The plasma >engine would have an exchaust velocity of 1000 to 10,000 kilometers per >second. This means a specific impulse of 100,000 to 1000,000 seconds. > > The rate of the acceleration of this starship is determined by the >thrust to mass ratio of its ion or plasma engines. The velocity of this >starship is determined acording to acceleration x time. The thrust of >the ion or plasma drive is determined according to the exchaust velocity >of the engines x the amount of reaction mass provide per second by the >ramscoops. The acceleration of this starship would probably be from 10 >(-3) gs to 10 (-2)gs. This starship might be able to reach alpha >centauri in a voyage of from 40 to 100 years. This means that the vessel >would need to be either a generation ship or a sleeper ship. The sleeper >technique could be used only if a medically safe method of placing >people in suspended animation could be found. For robot starships >however the time factor would not matter that much. This starship could >obtain a velocity in space flight of from five to ten percent of the >speed of light. If you wish to respond to this email message from me , >my e mail address is j.davis@xroads.com True that would work, but as you noticed the performance is rather low. Basically we decided their was so little to scoop up in interstellar space, you'ld do better to just carry extra reaction mass and save the trouble of the ramscoop. Effectivly cruder systems worked much better. Note the systems we were considering had far higher speed (possibly over 40% of light speed for the mixed fusion systems, possibly up to lightspeed for more difficult pure microwave sail craft), allowing travel to the nearest stars in a bit over a decade. Round trip in under 30 years. Thanks for your interest in our web site. Hope you found it interesting. Kelly Starks From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 23 19:08 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1304" "Tue" "23" "September" "1997" "22:07:33" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "47" "starship-design: Forwarded message" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA25674 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 19:08:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout14.mail.aol.com (emout14.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.40]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA25619 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 19:08:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout14.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA12468 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 22:07:33 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970923220521_1291714647@emout14.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1303 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Forwarded message Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 22:07:33 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/8/97 10:09:27 AM, KELLY_STARKS@NSDGATE3.nsd.fmc.com (KELLY STARKS) wrote: >Forwarded message: >From: dasa3000@mondrian.sgol.it (Danilo D'Antonio) >To: KellySt@aol.com >Date: 97-09-03 03:46:58 EDT > >lunar@sunsite.unc.edu >http://sunsite.unc.edu/lunar/school/ >--- > > >Dear Mr. Starks of Lunar Institute of Technology, > >I send you my best regards and thanks for the wonderful emotions that your >site make me feel! > >I write to you for two reasons. > > >a) I wish invite you to visite the Space Age Calendar. I would like very >much, if it could be possible, to know your impressions on the idea. Do you >think that could be useful for your aims? You find it at: > >http://oasi.asti.it/Homes/eudemonia/calene.htm > > >b) I have prepared an italian site on the overpopulation issue. If it could >be possible, I would like to report the population-counter that you have on >SUNSITE on my site, naturally with the source and the link at your site. > > >I hope we can cooperate in some way in future (we are practically working at >the same ends). Have great days, read your kind words soon, > >Danilo D'Antonio > > >--- >LABORATORIO EUDEMONIA >Via Fonte Regina, 23 - 64100 - Teramo - Italy >tel: 0861/415655 - e.mail: dasa3000@sgol.it >http://oasi.asti.it/Homes/eudemonia/ From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 23 19:11 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4433" "Tue" "23" "September" "1997" "22:10:47" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "73" "starship-design: Re: starship design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA27115 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 19:11:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emin24.mail.aol.com (emout36.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.28]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA27103 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 19:11:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emin24.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA19952; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 22:10:47 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970923215620_116400594@emout15.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4432 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: jdavis@xroadstx.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: starship design Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 22:10:47 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/23/97 3:43:57 PM, you wrote: >I know about a type of ramjet starship that might be an achievable >goal.I propose the following conceptual design. Use breeder type nuclear >fission rectors to generate a few megawatts to a few gigawatts of >electricity to power a ramjet starship.Use ultraviolet laser beams to >ionize hydrogen gas in the path of the starship. Then use elecrostatic >ramscoops to collect from one to a hundred grams of interstellar >protons. An electrostatic ramscoop uses a negative elecrostatic field to >attract interstellar protons and pull them inside the engine. >The stength of of the natural electric field in interstellar space is 1. >x 10(-19) electon volts . An elecrostatic ramscoop's ion collection >radius is the distance at which the electric field of the ramscoop is >greater in strength then the natural electric field of interstellar >protons. The strength of a magnetic or electric field in a vacume >declines in proportion to the inverse square of the the change in >distance from the source of the field. This means that a ramscoop >electric field of -10,000 electron volts for example will be stronger >the the interstellar electric field strength for a radius of from >100,000 kilometers to possibly millions of kilometers from the >ramscoop.This ramscoop can be made of a lightweight material such as >aluminium metal in the form of a grid or screen. a mere ten kilowatts of >electricity could place a -10,000 volt elecric charge on the aluminium >screen to attract interstellar protons into the engine. > These interstellar protons would then be used as reaction mass in ion >or plasma rocket engines. These electric engines would accelerate the >protons into a high velocity exchaust jet which would propell the >starship. A beam of protons if accelerated through a a one million volt >electrostic field inside of an ion engine would obtain a velocity of >10,000 to 15000 kilometers pers second. This results in an ion engine >specific impulse of 1000,000 to 1,500,000 seconds. A plasma engine would >heat the the ionized hydrogen propellant collected by the ramscoop to >fusion range temperatures (10,000,000 degrees c to 100, 000, 000 >degrees c ) , with a high energy elecric arc or laser beam . Then the >plasma would be exchausted through an elecromagnetic nozzle to generate >thrust to propell the starship. Inside this superconducting >elecromagnetic nozzle, electromagnetic body forces will also provide an >additional acceleration to the plasma via the lorentz force. The plasma >engine would have an exchaust velocity of 1000 to 10,000 kilometers per >second. This means a specific impulse of 100,000 to 1000,000 seconds. > > The rate of the acceleration of this starship is determined by the >thrust to mass ratio of its ion or plasma engines. The velocity of this >starship is determined acording to acceleration x time. The thrust of >the ion or plasma drive is determined according to the exchaust velocity >of the engines x the amount of reaction mass provide per second by the >ramscoops. The acceleration of this starship would probably be from 10 >(-3) gs to 10 (-2)gs. This starship might be able to reach alpha >centauri in a voyage of from 40 to 100 years. This means that the vessel >would need to be either a generation ship or a sleeper ship. The sleeper >technique could be used only if a medically safe method of placing >people in suspended animation could be found. For robot starships >however the time factor would not matter that much. This starship could >obtain a velocity in space flight of from five to ten percent of the >speed of light. If you wish to respond to this email message from me , >my e mail address is j.davis@xroads.com True that would work, but as you noticed the performance is rather low. Basically we decided their was so little to scoop up in interstellar space, you'ld do better to just carry extra reaction mass and save the trouble of the ramscoop. Effectivly cruder systems worked much better. Note the systems we were considering had far higher speed (possibly over 40% of light speed for the mixed fusion systems, possibly up to lightspeed for more difficult pure microwave sail craft), allowing travel to the nearest stars in a bit over a decade. Round trip in under 30 years. Thanks for your interest in our web site. Hope you found it interesting. Kelly Starks From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 23 20:15 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["781" "Tue" "23" "September" "1997" "23:14:49" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "24" "starship-design: Re: RETURN " "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA16878 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 20:15:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout41.mail.aol.com (emout41.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.59]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA16814 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 20:15:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout41.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA08693; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 23:14:49 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970923220301_963449429@emout09.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 780 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: ruiz-jose@usa.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: RETURN Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 23:14:49 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/22/97 1:38:58 PM, you wrote: >IT'S JOSE, i THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP IN MY REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON THE TECHNICAL >REPORT AND WHATEVER HELP YOU COULD GIVE ME ON THE SPACE PROPULSION REQUEST OF MINE. > BEFORE YOU ASKED ME IF I COULD NARROW MY FIELD DOOOWN SO I HAVE NARROWED IT DOWN >TO REQUESTING INFORMATION ON PLASMA BASED PROPULTION SYSTEM. > I ALSO HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION. WHERE IS THE TECHNOLOGY FOR MAKING A STATIC ENERGY >BASED PROPULTION SYSTEM Ah, we don't have any listings in our library. Might try NASA's listings, or do an Alta-vista search on the topics of Arc-jet, and plasma thrusters. Someone at NASA has been playing with one lately, but I can't remember the name. Afriad I've never heard of a statis energy propulsion system. Kelly From owner-starship-design Wed Sep 24 07:41 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["851" "Wed" "24" "September" "1997" "10:37:55" "-0400" "David Levine" "david@actionworld.com" "" "19" "starship-design: Hmmmm" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA23372 for starship-design-outgoing; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 07:41:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from action-bdc.actionworld.com ([207.204.136.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA23328 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 07:41:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: by mail.actionworld.com with Internet Mail Service (5.0.1457.3) id ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 10:37:56 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1457.3) Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: David Levine Content-Type: text/plain Content-Length: 850 From: David Levine Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu'" Subject: starship-design: Hmmmm Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 10:37:55 -0400 Wow, you change email addresses and you wind up forgetting to notify a lot of mailing lists. I'm hoping I didn't miss TOO much. Anyway, my new email address is david@actionworld.com I don't know if you guys noticed, but the SunSITE website finally got updated a few months back, and I copied all of the stuff Kelly had FTP'd to me. So, what have I missed? Steve, you may want to remove my old address (david@interworld.com) - I'm not sure if I can do it myself now that I'm no longer at that address. David ----------------------------------------------------------------- David Levine david@actionworld.com Director of Development http://www.actionworld.com/ ActionWorld, Inc. (212) 387-8200 "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 25 07:35 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["9291" "Thu" "25" "September" "1997" "09:06:39" "-0500" "L. Parker" "lparker@cacaphony.net" nil "191" "starship-design: FW: SSRT: Space Access Update no. 75 (fwd)" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA06943 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 07:35:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.gnt.net (root@hurricane.gnt.net [204.49.53.3]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA06923 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 07:35:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from destin.gulfnet.com.gulfnet.com (x2p42.gnt.com [204.49.68.247]) by hurricane.gnt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA08125 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:09:39 -0500 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:09:33 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <01BCC992.BD473560.lparker@cacaphony.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "L. Parker" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 9290 From: "L. Parker" Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'LIT Starship Design Group'" Subject: starship-design: FW: SSRT: Space Access Update no. 75 (fwd) Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:06:39 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: Chris W. Johnson [SMTP:chrisj@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 3:25 PM To: Single Stage Rocket Technology News Subject: SSRT: Space Access Update no. 75 (fwd) Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 14:46:46 -0400 (EDT) From: NSS List Account To: DC-X Subject: Space Access Update #75 9/23/97 (fwd) Reply-To: delta-clipper@world.std.com Space Access Update #75 9/23/97 Copyright 1997 by Space Access Society ________________________________________________________________________ We've had a number of comments about our Updates running both too long and too infrequently. We're going to lean toward "Better is the enemy of Good Enough" for a while and try to get news out the door faster. ________________________________________________________________________ stories this issue: - DOD MSP Gets $10 million in FY'98 Defense Appropriation Conference - NASA News - "Future X", RLV Work In Doubt as NASA Faces Funding Crunch - X-33 Aerodynamic Configuration Still Evolving - X-34, Bantam News (Space Access Society's sole purpose is to promote near-term radical reductions in the cost of reaching space. You may redistribute this Update in any medium you choose, as long as you do it whole and intact. Contact us for permission to use excerpts beyond "fair use" limits.) ________________________________________________________________________ Military "Spaceplane" (MSP) Funded at $10 million in FY'98 Our thanks to everyone who responded to part 1 of our 9/10/97 political alert supporting preliminary technology work on fast-turnaround, small- groundcrew reusable space vehicles within the USAF. We think it's a necessary hedge to the NASA RLV bet, and we're very glad to say that the House-Senate Defence Appropriations conference finished up last Friday with a bill that includes $10 million for this work. It may not sound like much, but then it's going to many of the same people who built and flew DC-X for less than $70 million total. It's a start. A related piece of good news: The USAF FY'99 budget request will, for the very first time, actually include funding for MSP work. The amount asked for is token, $5 million. The significance of this news is that up till now, all DOD money for this sort of work has been unrequested, added later by the Congress. Now someone in DOD is finally admitting that reusable rockets matter. It'll still be a fight to get funding, but now we have a hook to hang it from. ________________________________________________________________________ NASA "Future X", RLV Funding In Doubt In the short term, NASA "Future X" funding is in doubt - last we heard the HUD/VA/IA (NASA) Appropriations conference preparations are still grinding on, but we understand there's overwhelming pressure to find money elsewhere in NASA to cover the accumulated Space Station overruns - $430 million needed in FY'98 is the latest figure we've seen. We asked for support for the higher House total NASA appropriation in the conference, and for $15 million to be reallocated for "Future X" reusable launch experiments out of this. (See part 2 of our 9/10/97 political alert at www.space-access.org for details.) If you haven't yet acted on that alert, or if you came up with an ongoing contact out of it, please ask for this in addition to what's in the alert: A statement of support for NASA "Future X" in the HUD/VA Appropriation "statement of managers" (the explanatory report language that accompanies the "conference report", the actual bill.) It can't hurt, it might help, it costs nothing - and given the Station funding overruns, costing nothing is a considerable virtue. We understand the HUD/VA Appropriations conference will take place tomorrow, Wednesday 9/24/97 - try to get your two cents worth in tonight or tomorrow morning, if you haven't already. Thanks! NASA Funding Crunch Gets Worse Next Year The FY'98 funding process is winding down, and already the first steps in the FY'99 federal budget are happening. We understand that White House OMB (Office of Management and Budget) has set NASA's FY'99 budget request cap at $12.6 billion, down 6.7% from this year's $13.5 billion. We hear that NASA HQ thinks this isn't enough to continue doing all the things NASA currently does, and that they are working on a list of cuts that includes just about all RLV work other than X-33. To a considerable extent, this is a ritual - OMB threatens cuts, agencies claim they'll have to dump programs under such severe cuts and spread rumors about killing projects they think will generate political fuss and thus pressure on OMB to cut less. This is still months from being NASA's formal budget request; much will change. However, despite all promises to the contrary, Station overruns look like eating a lot of other projects' lunches within NASA in FY'98, and even if OMB relents somewhat on the reduced NASA budget ceiling, things will likely get worse rather than better in FY'99. Absent radical change, anything we can get done at NASA in the next couple years will be around the margins, low-budget stuff - we don't anticipate any major new starts, and we expect considerable pressure on existing projects. Just as well there are signs of life among the startup companies in the commercial RLV sector. In that regard, we should mention that we've come upon indications that at least one additional outfit, our near- namesake Space Access Inc, of Palmdale CA, has found sufficient funding to have engineers on staff doing design work. SA Inc is we hear working on a partially airbreathing approach. (See www.space-access.org for SAU #74 with more on the other five funded RLV startups we know of.) Senate NASA Authorization In The Works Meanwhile, we hear the Senate Commerce Committee's Space & Technology Subcommittee is still working on their first NASA Authorization bill in years, and that there will very likely be a final Authorization, though if so, not till very late in this year's session. One interesting thing we hear: Senator John McCain, chairman of the overall Commerce Committee, has spoken in favor of writing the current informal $2.1 billion annual cap on Station into law in this Authorization. This would definitely make life interesting for NASA HQ and the Station project if it ended up in the final version - and McCain's record is that he's both tight with a buck, and a very determined man indeed once he makes up his mind. X-33 Aerodynamic Configuration Still Evolving We hear that X-33's low-speed stability problems still aren't solved, and that there's some disagreement as to the best way to solve them - some of the aerodynamicists think that small forward "canard" control surfaces are the way to go, but the main approach is still further increases in the size of the tail fins. (No cheap shots about Detroit in '57, please...) (One of our advisors points out that the Russians solved similar lifting-body low-speed handling problems with a flat "shovel-nose" shape for the forward fuselage. We would assume this approach has already been looked at for X-33, but we thought we'd mention it, just in case. Given the amount of standoff structure that's already crept in from aerodynamic changes, and given the need to add ballast to the nose anyway, the weight of such a change shouldn't be a show-stopper.) X-34 News X-34 is actually going pretty well, from what we hear - the design has been frozen for a while now, and airframe construction is underway. Flight test site preparations at White Sands in New Mexico are also underway. We do note that X-34's primary engine, the MSFC "FasTrac" design project, seems to still be having its problems. NASA Marshall isn't saying much about this, but we note what they don't say speaks volumes: Their announcement of a full-duration test-stand firing of the FasTrac combustion chamber and nozzle says nothing about status of the injectors and propellant pumps. We hope the X-34 contractor has kept the option for a Russian backup engine alive despite the apparent political pressure to the contrary. Bantam News The NASA Bantam project awarded four $2 million preliminary contracts earlier this year, the object being to support development of components for new low-cost lightsat launchers. We understand the Bantam project is on hold, due to a losing bidder (Microcosm, we hear) protesting the awards. Given NASA's growing budget crunch, it's possible we'll see this leading to Bantam being killed entirely or radically restructured. Which would be a shame, for although Bantam isn't exactly how we'd have gone about encouraging startups in the cheap launch business, it's a lot better than nothing. And that's all for this week... ________________________________________________________________________ Space Access Society http://www.space-access.org space.access@space-access.org "Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere in the Solar System" - Robert Anson Heinlein From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 25 18:46 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["379" "Thu" "25" "September" "1997" "21:46:18" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "11" "starship-design: New space craft concepts" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA15404 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 18:46:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com (emout04.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.95]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA15391 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 18:46:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id VAA19730; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:46:18 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970925214503_551925901@emout04.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 378 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: New space craft concepts Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:46:18 -0400 (EDT) Check out a new site: http://stp.msfc.nasa.gov/stpweb/astp/astphome.html Marshal space flight is looking into exotic tecnologies for future space craft. Ranges from pulse dethonation rocket enging and MHD powered rockets, to and experiment they want to run in december to see if they can manipulate gravity fields. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 25 18:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["314" "Thu" "25" "September" "1997" "21:47:47" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "14" "starship-design: Re: re: LIT" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA15704 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 18:48:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout20.mail.aol.com (emout20.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.46]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA15694 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 18:48:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout20.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id VAA07022 for starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:47:47 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970925214548_1823217038@emout20.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 313 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: Cain117@aol.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: re: LIT Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:47:47 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/24/97 9:46:52 AM, you wrote: > Is this still a living site? Last revision date is mid 1996. Please email me >a response. > Shan Sort of living. Since then no ones had the time to work on it. But then we haven't a lot to add. Sorry we haven't been keeping it up. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 25 18:57 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["379" "Thu" "25" "September" "1997" "21:56:55" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "11" "starship-design: New space craft concepts" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA18575 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 18:57:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout30.mail.aol.com (emout30.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.135]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA18566 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 18:57:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout30.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id VAA27057; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:56:55 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970925214503_551925901@emout04.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 378 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: lparker@cacaphony.net, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: New space craft concepts Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:56:55 -0400 (EDT) Check out a new site: http://stp.msfc.nasa.gov/stpweb/astp/astphome.html Marshal space flight is looking into exotic tecnologies for future space craft. Ranges from pulse dethonation rocket enging and MHD powered rockets, to and experiment they want to run in december to see if they can manipulate gravity fields. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 25 19:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["946" "Thu" "25" "September" "1997" "22:46:37" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "42" "starship-design: Re: Enquiries into Starship technologies." "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA01526 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 19:47:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emin16.mail.aol.com (emout31.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.14]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA01514 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 19:47:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emin16.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA28529; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 22:46:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970925224331_641836635@emout12.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 945 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: thedeans@actrix.gen.nz, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Enquiries into Starship technologies. Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 22:46:37 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/20/97 3:10:19 AM, you wrote: >Kelly, > > > > I seem to be having a great deal of difficulty reaching any of the data or > >reference data used by your group. > > > > Could you E,mail me with directions to your technical systems folders and > >base desigh formular. > > > >Kev Sorry for the delay in geting back to you. Been busy around here, so it took me a while to check out the site for problems. But when I did check out the main site I didn't have any real trouble getting around. (Note some of the maps are busted so you may need to go to the text links at the bottom of the page.) Which site were you going to? I couldn't get to the URLY-BIRD mirror. Try: http://sunsite.unc.edu/lunar/school/ for technical refernces try the library. http://sunsite.unc.edu/lunar/school/library/index.html Other indexes should be in the papers. I'm afraid I waasn't sure what info you were asking for? Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 25 19:47 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["766" "Thu" "25" "September" "1997" "22:46:42" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "26" "starship-design: Re: Alien Research" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA01573 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 19:47:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout24.mail.aol.com (emout24.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.129]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA01550 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 19:47:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout24.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA15252; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 22:46:42 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970925224344_1074677082@emout19.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 765 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: nicolac@hotmail.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Alien Research Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 22:46:42 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/23/97 10:06:36 PM, you wrote: >Hello! > My name is Nicola Coyle and I am a student in Ottawa,Ont Canada. I was >just on your website (urly-bird.com) looking for info on the Contact >project or Alien Studies and was unable to access the links. I was >wondering if it would be possible for you to send me that information >and any additional information you might have relating to the topic of >communication with other life forms.If so it would be greatly >appreciated. > Thank You, > Nicola Coyle Hi Nicola, You might want to check out the other copy of the site. (The two sites arn't completly sinced. Sorry.) http://sunsite.unc.edu/lunar/school/exohomepage.html It does have the sublinks you looking for. Kelly From owner-starship-design Thu Sep 25 19:48 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["849" "Thu" "25" "September" "1997" "22:48:07" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "27" "Re: starship-design: Hmmmm" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA01764 for starship-design-outgoing; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 19:48:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout26.mail.aol.com (emout26.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.131]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA01741 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 19:48:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout26.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA01495; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 22:48:07 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: darkwing.uoregon.edu: majordom set sender to owner-starship-design using -f Message-ID: <970925224341_-629722919@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 848 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: david@actionworld.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: Re: starship-design: Hmmmm Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 22:48:07 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/24/97 8:41:55 AM, david@actionworld.com wrote: >Wow, you change email addresses and you wind up forgetting to notify a >lot of mailing lists. I'm hoping I didn't miss TOO much. > >Anyway, my new email address is david@actionworld.com > >I don't know if you guys noticed, but the SunSITE website finally got >updated a few months back, and I copied all of the stuff Kelly had FTP'd >to me. So, what have I missed? Steve, you may want to remove my old >address (david@interworld.com) - I'm not sure if I can do it myself now >that I'm no longer at that address. > >David Must have been a while. I congratulated you on uploading the new stuff a couple months ago. ;) That was probably part way through your rebuild, I noticed the support craft section wasn't in yet. Anyway, welcome back, oh wandering founder! Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 29 22:01 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3596" "Tue" "30" "September" "1997" "01:00:34" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "75" "starship-design: Re: Starship design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA08066 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:01:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout26.mail.aol.com (emout26.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.131]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA08041 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:01:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout26.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id BAA02110; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:00:34 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <970930000339_37564942@emout06.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3595 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: tcobb@onr.com, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Subject: starship-design: Re: Starship design Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:00:34 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/29/97 7:11:11 PM, you wrote: >Greetings-- > >I was really interested in your Starship design page, as this has always >been an interest of mine. I was delighted that people were thinking about >actual designs for interstellar vehicles. > >One of the points made was, in relation to light sail craft, was that >there really wasn't any practical way to use the light from earth or wherever >to deaccelerate the ship. Perhaps there is. > >Imagine if you will a craft that is shaped somewhat like an umbrella. The >"covering" of the umbrella is a light sail. Lasers from the solar system >would be used to accelerate it towards its destination. Deacceleration >would be accomplished by reconfiguring the sail so that all light would >be focused on the "handle" of the umbrella, which would be a thermo-electric >generator. The shaft leading to the top would be a magnetic accelerator. >Very small pieces of iron would be used as reaction mass to slow the starship, >pushed out at a very high velocity. Note that the velocity of the "exhaust" >would be arbitrarily high, dependent upon the amount of power obtained from >the light-gathering generators and the efficiency of the rail-gun drive. > >This design is very similar to the fuel/sail concept mentioned in your web >page, but it differs in that it does not depend on the starship carrying a >source of power to slow it down. All power would be beamed to it until it >became close enough to the target star to use its light to obtain power. >Given the type of propulsion used, the concept of "specific impulse" becomes >meaningless. Theoretically, if (1)beamed enough power (2)that it could handle >and (3)the magnetic accelerator was powerful enough, it could essentially >"create" reaction mass if the "exhaust" was accelerated to relativistic >speeds, since its mass would increase. Of course, this would be incredibly >wasteful of energy considering the momentum generated, but since the power >comes from outside the ship and is essentially free, who cares? > >I haven't tried working out any math on such a model, but so far as I know it >is not something that your group has discussed. Maybe the concept is >terminally flawed for reasons I do not see, but any feedback that you might >have on this would be welcome if you have the time. > >---tcobb@onr.com Hi, Glad you liked the site. We were trying to inspire people. ;) We did actually consider something like your design called M.A.R.S. (Microwave Augmented Rocket System). In M.A.R.S. a microwave sail was used, and the microwaves focused back to drive a deceleration rocket. I'm not sure where we finished with that, but it had two problems. Forst the amount of energy causes tremendous waste heat problems. Secound, the sail is so efficent at producing forward thrust, its difficult to generate enough reverse thrust to counteract it. Can't remember if its proponent (Kevin Houston) was ever sure it could slow down? We alsao toyed with some related ideas. I came up with on where the beam was focused back and reflected forward as a narror beam through the center of the ship. That beam is reflected backwards off a plasma sheet formed ahead of the ship. The plasma would blast forward (possible rocket thrust their) and the reversed beam could push backwards on a deceleration sail behind it. But we did know how much power, or mass, it would take to refect the beam; and ir seemed a little complicated. If you figure out how to make any of these work give us a e-mail. ;) Thanks again for the interest. Kelly From owner-starship-design Mon Sep 29 22:12 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1693" "Mon" "29" "September" "1997" "22:12:52" "-0700" "Steve VanDevender" "stevev@efn.org" nil "32" "starship-design: Re: Starship design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA11628 for starship-design-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:12:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wakko.efn.org (wakko.efn.org [198.68.17.6]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA11554 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:12:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tzadkiel.efn.org (cisco-ts7-line2.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.49]) by wakko.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA18581; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:10:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from stevev@localhost) by tzadkiel.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA13762; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:12:52 -0700 Message-Id: <199709300512.WAA13762@tzadkiel.efn.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <970930000339_37564942@emout06.mail.aol.com> References: <970930000339_37564942@emout06.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 19.15p7 XEmacs Lucid Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Steve VanDevender Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 1692 From: Steve VanDevender Sender: owner-starship-design To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Cc: tcobb@onr.com Subject: starship-design: Re: Starship design Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:12:52 -0700 KellySt@aol.com writes: > Glad you liked the site. We were trying to inspire people. ;) > > We did actually consider something like your design called M.A.R.S. > (Microwave Augmented Rocket System). In M.A.R.S. a microwave sail was used, > and the microwaves focused back to drive a deceleration rocket. I'm not sure > where we finished with that, but it had two problems. Forst the amount of > energy causes tremendous waste heat problems. Secound, the sail is so > efficent at producing forward thrust, its difficult to generate enough > reverse thrust to counteract it. Can't remember if its proponent (Kevin > Houston) was ever sure it could slow down? As I recall there was a great deal of debate about this, mostly around the physically impossible idea of slowing down using beamed power from Earth without using reaction mass. If you use some sort of reaction mass (and in a real sense, a retromirror is reaction mass -- it gains the forward momentum so the payload can lose its momentum) then you can slow down. I suspect that it may be more practical to exploit drag from the interstellar medium to decelerate down from high relativistic speeds, then use a fusion rocket or the like to do the final braking into the target system. Then you need neither beamed power nor to carry extra reaction mass that increases power requirements during the boost phase of the trip. Of course, this isn't very helpful for the return trip unless the travelers can build a boost beam in their target system, but I believe that among the other advances needed for interstellar travel, we'll have to advance past the notion that explorers should always return from their trips. From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 30 18:42 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1774" "Tue" "30" "September" "1997" "21:38:11" "-0400" "David Levine" "david@actionworld.com" nil "46" "starship-design: Game Help" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA29714 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:42:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from action-bdc.actionworld.com ([207.204.136.52]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA29696 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:42:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: by ACTION-BDC with Internet Mail Service (5.0.1457.3) id ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:38:13 -0400 Message-ID: X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1457.3) Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: David Levine Content-Type: text/plain Content-Length: 1773 From: David Levine Sender: owner-starship-design To: "'starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu'" Subject: starship-design: Game Help Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:38:11 -0400 I got this email recently. Please feel free to response directly to Mr. Fischer (I've asked him and he said that would be great). Being a game designer myself now, it could be inappropriate for me to help out! -David ====================================== Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:28:04 -0500 From: Ian Fischer To: lunar@sunsite.unc.edu Hello, Dave: My name is Ian Fischer and I'm a game designer with Ensemble Studios of Dallas (developers of the soon to be released Age of Empires; see http://www.ensemble-studios.com/games/index.html for details.) I am currently working on a hard science fiction strategy game design and from time to time, I seek out people with scientific backgrounds to review my work (mostly to look for glaring technical mistakes) or offer opinions and ideas. I came across your site the other day, was impressed with the level of creativity and scientific knowledge exhibited there, and though that participating in this sort of thing might be something that you (or some LIT members) might be interested in doing. I'll spare you the reams of legal jargon required in the event of actual participation until you notify me of any interest -- until them, please feel free to email me with any questions. Ian M. Fischer Assistant Game Designer ENSEMBLE STUDIOS Ifischer@ensemble-studios.com www.ensemble-studios.com ====================================== ----------------------------------------------------------------- David Levine david@actionworld.com Director of Development http://www.actionworld.com/ ActionWorld, Inc. (212) 387-8200 "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." From owner-starship-design Tue Sep 30 20:10 PDT 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2158" "Tue" "30" "September" "1997" "23:09:46" "-0400" "KellySt@aol.com" "KellySt@aol.com" nil "52" "Re: starship-design: Re: Starship design" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA00111 for starship-design-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:10:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emout29.mail.aol.com (emout29.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.134]) by darkwing.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA00079 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:10:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout29.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA05161; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:09:46 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <970930221325_-295585300@emout13.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: KellySt@aol.com Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2157 From: KellySt@aol.com Sender: owner-starship-design To: stevev@efn.org, starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu cc: tcobb@onr.com Subject: Re: starship-design: Re: Starship design Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:09:46 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 9/30/97 12:54:37 AM, stevev@efn.org (Steve VanDevender) wrote: >KellySt@aol.com writes: > > Glad you liked the site. We were trying to inspire people. ;) > > > > We did actually consider something like your design called M.A.R.S. > > (Microwave Augmented Rocket System). In M.A.R.S. a microwave sail was used, > > and the microwaves focused back to drive a deceleration rocket. I'm not sure > > where we finished with that, but it had two problems. Forst the amount of > > energy causes tremendous waste heat problems. Secound, the sail is so > > efficent at producing forward thrust, its difficult to generate enough > > reverse thrust to counteract it. Can't remember if its proponent (Kevin > > Houston) was ever sure it could slow down? > >As I recall there was a great deal of debate about this, mostly around >the physically impossible idea of slowing down using beamed power from >Earth without using reaction mass. If you use some sort of reaction >mass (and in a real sense, a retromirror is reaction mass -- it gains >the forward momentum so the payload can lose its momentum) then you can >slow down. I'm not sure, but I think your right. Thou for technical reasons a retro-mirror system, is probably unworkable. >I suspect that it may be more practical to exploit drag from the >interstellar medium to decelerate down from high relativistic speeds, >then use a fusion rocket or the like to do the final braking into the >target system. Then you need neither beamed power nor to carry extra >reaction mass that increases power requirements during the boost phase >of the trip. I'm not sure, but I think we gave up on using interstellar media for drag? Probably their just isn't enough of it to be worth using. Anyone remember? >Of course, this isn't very helpful for the return trip unless the >travelers can build a boost beam in their target system, but I believe >that among the other advances needed for interstellar travel, we'll have >to advance past the notion that explorers should always return from >their trips. ?! This is an advance? Throwing away a ship and crew to save fuel costs? Kelly