Re: starship-design: Re: FTL travel

[Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca>]

STAR1SHIP@aol.com wrote:
> 

> 
> Since your waiting on earth for someone else to provide you a good reusable
> orbital launch vehicle, it would be reasonable to assume you think like NASA
> does of space ships as high flying airplanes. I think of real space ships as
> deep-space ships.
> 

I think of space-ships as both near ( interplanetary ) and far ( deep )
space craft.


> With your attitude, you will remain ground bounded referred to derogatorily
> by "deep spacers" as "a ground bounder." It would seem that the title of this
> mailing list is misnamed starship-design.

I hope not... How will I ever see my 3.125 square miles of Mars.

> 
> Making for the moment the silly assumption that my engine will not do as I
> claim, I propose the following open ended proposition to all list members.
>
> 
> Concerned,
> Pretend we have a working engine to take to the stars at a constant one-g.
>

This is false statement in my belief, but I don't have the math skills
to prove you wrong. Propulsion is not the limiting factor, rather
clearing
the path of planetary debris, through stellar systems. I am guessing
this
will place a limit of < .01 C unless a bastard jet design becomes
practical,
with <.25C for a bastard jet.
 
> To get public funding for a star journey requires a complete package as did
> the programs for orbiting man around the earth or landing man on the moon
> prior to construction.
> 
> Pretend that soon someone will invent a working starship engine, providing
> heat, light, water artificial gravity, and a protective shell as (I claim to
> have already invented), What can this group provide as content?
> 
> Can this group fill the empty payload space with matter to say provide for a
> mixed sex crew of 20 for a simple non returning journey whose mission is a
> lifelong journey on the ship, or to a star planetoid so barren that an
> underground cave must be adapted air tight for colonization as a minimum
> requirement till crew life's end?
>
That is the risk the explores take. 50 people is the biological minimum
number
of people to survive on the short term.

> 
> What would be needed as beginning supplies should they find a planet to land
> on that the crew can prosper and multiply?.
> 
> What technology exists today that you would be conformable living the
> remainder of your life in?
> 
> Recycled garbage and human waste as food does not appeal to me, though I am
> no against feeding it to the plants and animals on the soil (for export to
> barren world) on board. What seed stock and frozen embryos and DNA clonable
> samples and soil matter reduced (not containing obtainable ground rock) ?
> 

Nor does green- algae appeal either, a few more items in the food web
could not 
hurt. The reason that a closed living environment looks complex, is that
we
are useto getting things free since Cave Man times... Need a new stone
knife,
throw out the old, and find a new rock. One does not fuse all the broken
stone
chips together to make a new stone.  

> Assume complete independence from earth (information travels to slow between
> stars to be useful-still pretending my FTL engine not workable) so what CD's
> of library knowledge, minimal trade crafts, food, and plants, soil and
> animals would you take to the stars.
>

That is a hard question, with no easy answers.
This is a job for "Bio-Dome" man.
 
> 
> List by weight next to the item.
> The total weight I or a future inventor can then use to design the engine
> specs make the engine to power such a workable mission.

> 
> Should the crew be condemned prisoners or starship--design list members.

There is a difference? grin.

> Will I have to drag mankind to the stars kicking and screaming?
> 

Yes you will because most men want to stay home and grumble.

> Engine aside, can you draw a working diagram of the payload system that is
> buildable with present technology or do I have to provide everything to be
> credible?
> 
> Remember the fickle public funding freaks require a complete list of items of
> a working package with no unknowns.
> 
> I expect the members of this group to have done some original homework as
> regards the above. If not then perhaps a list name change to star
> travel-is-impossible@lists.. would be appropriate.
> 
> I am not the general public and am conformable with unknowns you may provide.
> Please separate applied technology (conventional known technology) from
> theoretical (hypothesis) in your response. Please take some care with syntax
> usage (time case of past, present, future).
>

Since I am a computer programmer ,I only have no great technology skills
many of the fields required, but just a curiosity in many of the fields.
As a hobbies I like to design digital projects, but I have no cash for
any large projects like a 24 bit TTL computer from only logic gates and
flip-flops. Say 500 TTL packages. Now back to the topic at hand.

I think we need have both a star-ship and inter-planetary design
mailing lists. I believe in planetary and later stellar travel
other wise I would be in the Gock_for_Spock mailing lists.
Now is the Golden Age of Star travel... 
Ben.

> 
> Regards,
> Tom
> 
 

-- 
"We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents...
 We borrow it from our children."
The Lagging edge of technology:
http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/woodelf/index.html