Re: starship-design: Collision sails and various things

[KellySt@aol.com]

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