A diamond hull will not be enough!

[a_lost_packet_]

(Been working on a project and haven't been back in the past few weeks.)<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>maddad - By the way, packet's idea of greasing the pusher plate increases ablation rather than decrease it. The ablation is a consequence of primary heating, not the secondary heating by the fireball. The grease will change the steel's color to black, which will cause it to reflect fewer photons and therefore heat more. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Sorry, but you are wrong. Where do you get the idea that the grease will "change the steel's color?" The pusher plate would not be changing color due to carbonization of grease. You're thinking of much lower temperatures. Plasma tests using various grease compounds were done. In fact, the original experimentors found the protection values by accident. As an aluminum plate was being tested under forced plasma, it was noticed that the areas where the experimentors fingers had touched the surface during handling suffered much less ablation damage. When pursued, it was found that the experimentor's hands had come into contact with protective grease used to protect the metal surfaces during shipment. The thin layer deposited by the fingertips during handling was enough to offer substantial protection from the high temperature plasma used during the experiment. Subsequent experiments proved that the thin layer of protection offered by the grease was enough to substantially offset the already minimal amount of ablation damage.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>maddad - Additionally, Project Orion represents a great deal of money should it become funded. Money has always been a motivator, and Dyson would stand to be on the receiving end should this project gather steam. Just because Dyson is smart, we should not abandon critical thinking. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Nobody, especially myself, has ever seriously suggested we should undertake buildi <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>

 

[Maddad]

packet<br />"<font color="yellow">Sorry, but you are wrong. . . The pusher plate would not be changing color due to carbonization of grease.</font><br />Have you ever cleaned your stove? What color is carbonized grease? Besides which, the carbonization only happens after the grease has absorbed some radiation. Sorry, but you are wrong.<img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />"<font color="yellow">it was noticed that the areas where the experimentors fingers had touched the surface during handling suffered much less ablation damage.</font><br />Oh, so only 3,999 pounds of concrete ablated instead of the full two tons? After you slathered on 10 pounds of grease? Sure that'll work. packet, if you're making the case that a fingerprint will stop a nuclear bomb, then you're so full of it that your eyes are brown.<br /><br />"<font color="yellow">I listed the expected ablatement values in one of my posts</font><br />The <strong><em>observed</em></strong> ablatement values were two tons of it in the fist few microseconds. The only reason more tons didn't ablate is that was all there was. Nuclear bomb, close range, remember? Fingerprints didn't stop it. <br /><br />"<font color="yellow">the cumulative amount of time the pusher plate would be subjected to extreme temperatures would be on the order of around two seconds</font><br />Even if that figure was accurate, which of course has never been tested because such tests have never been conducted, that's 70 times longer than the two ton concrete plug survived, and it probably had fingerprints on it. That's for one nuclear bomb, and Orion proposes many thousands of them.<br /><br />"<font color="yellow">You don't understand the concept proposed by Project Orion. The "bomb" is not being relied on for total propulsion. It is being used to vaporize a "fuel" source which, in turn, impacts upon the pusher plate.</font><br />You don't understand that no mater what fuel sou

 

[a_lost_packet_]

<font color="orange">a_lost_packet_-"Sorry, but you are wrong. . . The pusher plate would not be changing color due to carbonization of grease." </font><br /><br /><br /><font color="yellow">maddad - Have you ever cleaned your stove? What color is carbonized grease? Besides which, the carbonization only happens after the grease has absorbed some radiation. Sorry, but you are wrong. </font><br /><br />...<br /><br />Surely you are joking? We're talking about plasma temperatures here. You're stove doesn't quite get that hot. Have you ever owned a "self cleaning" oven? These use high temperatures to more fully carbonize deposits so they are easily removed, leaving the survace free of debris. So, if the temperatures in a self-cleaning oven can accomplish this, don't you think a blast of high temperature plasma would "sort of" reduce the possibility that grease would remain "stuck" to the aluminum pusher plate? Maybe?<br /><br />The grease would only act to absorb some of the thermal energy impinging upon the pressure plate. The grease would be broken down rapidly and removed. It would, of course, be required to be reapplied in between blasts. Suggestions during the project included nozzle delivery systems. In any event, the "grease" was not designed to totally counter thermal degredation. It was discovered that it could significantly help reduce the already minimal amount of thermal degredation suggested by experiment. That is all.<br /><br /><font color="orange">a_lost_packet_- ... "it was noticed that the areas where the experimentors fingers had touched the surface during handling suffered much less ablation damage." </font><br /><br /><font color="yellow">maddad - Oh, so only 3,999 pounds of concrete ablated instead of the full two tons? After you slathered on 10 pounds of grease? Sure that'll work. packet, if you're making the case that a fingerprint will stop a nuclear bomb, then you're so full of it that your eyes are brown. </font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>

 

[Maddad]

You're arguing against yourself, packet. If the grease doesn't stick around, then it's a moot point anyway. You're the one trying to claim that your greasy fingerprints will stop a nuclear bomb. Won't happen.<br /><br />"<font color="yellow">The grease would only act to absorb some of the thermal energy</font><br />If that's your mechanism for stopping a nuclear bomb then you'd better give it up now. There were guys thousands of feet from ground zero at Heroshima that are now nothing but a shadow etched in the concrete. Their grease didn't help them a whit, and yours won't do you any better.<br /><br />"<font color="yellow">There is no concrete associated with any materials of construction involved in an Orion-style NPP ship.</font><br />I have already invited you to show the superior thermal charistics of steel over concrete, which you failed to do. Since the closes we have is the concrete, then we're accepting that the total ablation of the entire two ton plug in 31 milliseconds is representative. As shown earlier in this thread, when you put something a few feet from a nuclear bomb, it does not survive.<br /><br /><font color="Lime">Project Orion: Not Exactly Rocket Science</font>

 

[a_lost_packet_]

<font color="yellow">Maddad - As shown earlier in this thread, when you put something a few feet from a nuclear bomb, it does not survive. </font><br /><br />However, as shown earlier in this thread, materials have been designed which survived close association with a nuclear blast. The experimental test objects were steel balls which were coated with graphite. They contained measurement instruments and survived completely intact; In some cases, showing almost no sign of any ablation or damage whatsoever. I posted detailed and verifiable information on this earlier in the thead.<br /><br />Maddad, these objects were designed to survive and to ride the "shock wave" of the nuclear blast. They were designed to be recovered intact and to be analyzed. They survived quite nicely. This is clear proof that it is possible to purposefully design something which will survive being a few feet away from a nuclear blast at the moment of detonation. Clear, experimental proof.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>

 

[Maddad]

No. We do not know that those materials were close to the source of the blast. They were close to the opening of the shaft. The blast was 500 feet down. These coated objects suffer from exactly what you have been complaining about; they were not specific Orion experiments. They fail because they have not been reproduced, a basic tenant of any scientific theory. They fail because being designed to ride a shock wave does not deal with the thermal pulse. When you get close to the blast, down at the bottom of the shaft, you have two tons of concrete vaporized in less than 31 milliseconds, about what we shoud expect from a nuclear bomb. In short, your ideas are junk.<br /><br /><font color="Lime">Project Orion: Not Exactly Rocket Science</font><br />

 

[a_lost_packet_]

<font color="yellow">maddad - No. We do not know that those materials were close to the source of the blast. They were close to the opening of the shaft. The blast was 500 feet down. </font><br /><br />What are you talking about? The Pascal tests (Underground nuclear explosions designed to test "cap" materials over a shaft.) were not involved with the spheres that I am talking about. In fact, they had nothing whatsoever to do with Project Orion. I listed the experiments before and they were reproduced several times with similar results. The spheres were placed on top of the tower located at ground zero. They were within a few feet of the device, not hundreds. Really, you shouldn't get your experiments mixed up.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">maddad - They fail because being designed to ride a shock wave does not deal with the thermal pulse. </font><br /><br />But maddad.. the objects did not fail during any of the controlled experiments. So that leaves your statement.. where exactly?<br /><br /><font color="yellow">maddad - In short, your ideas are junk. </font><br /><br />My ideas? I assure you that I have only presented factual information, real data, real experiments and the opinions of the investigators in this thread. These are not my ideas. These are the findings and ideas of those researchers associated with Project Orion. I assure you, I have clearly stated in my posts whether or not a statement is my personal opinion or if I am giving a personal interpretation. The only statements that I have made which can be considered as wholey mine involve trying to explain these things to someone who refuses to try to understand them. The only personal opinions I have made regarding Project Orion is that I am not in favor of it due to widely recognized political, ecological and social reasons.<br /><br />By the way, it doesn't seem that you have changed during my absence. You still seem to have the same callous demeanor. Did Santa <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>

 

[Maddad]

Spheres were on top of a tower, and the blast was 500 feet underground. Without a LOT of independent verification, reproduction of results by other researchers, there is no way I will interpret your words as meaning greasy fingerprints will stop a nuclear bomb from ten feet away.

 

[mcbethcg]

Who proposes putting a nuke 10 feet away? <br /><br />The original plan for a small orion called for a .1 kt nuke 200 feet behind the ship.<br /><br />Your idea that it be a full sized nuke 10 feet behind the ship is a "straw man" argument. You incorrectly restate the others position- lie in other words- in ridiculous terms, and then say "look- the other guy is ridiculous!"

 

[a_lost_packet_]

<font color="yellow">maddad - Spheres were on top of a tower, and the blast was 500 feet underground. Without a LOT of independent verification, reproduction of results by other researchers, there is no way I will interpret your words as meaning greasy fingerprints will stop a nuclear bomb from ten feet away. </font><br /><br />...<br /><br />Maddad, stop for a moment. You have obviously gotten completely confused concerning the experiments conducted. Nothing in your statement is factually connected to anything which was observed nor does it factually describe any experiments undertaken during Project Orion. I posted the experiments several times and none of them were in any way related to what you are suggesting.<br /><br />In an effort to clear this up, I will put in another post which links to and summarizes the findings and experiments I've already presented. I'm trying to get out of the office in the next couple of minutes and have to post the other info I promised anyway.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>

 

[Maddad]

mcbethcg<br />"<font color="yellow">Who proposes putting a nuke 10 feet away?</font><br />packet does. 3.5 meters, which is close enough to 10 feet.<br /><br />"<font color="yellow">The original plan for a small orion called for a .1 kt nuke 200 feet behind the ship.</font><br />packet's information from links he provided say that a device twice that size is ineffective for propulsion if more than 3.5 meters away. The reason that the original plan called for 200 feet is they didn't understand that a nuke is a thermal device before it pushes anything.<br /><br />"<font color="yellow">Your idea that it be a full sized nuke 10 feet behind the ship is a "straw man" argument. </font><br />I never called packet's idea a straw man argument.

 

[sunday_scour]

If we are able to build a large stationary "Space Bender" station (the size of our know solar system might work.... ;->) , then we could bend and deform space any way and in any direction we saw fit. If that were possible travelling at C or anywhere around it would be unneccissary (spelling?) and irrelevant. HOWEVER, future "Manly Men" (assuming we still haven't fixed the broken leg of the 23rd chromosome) would still be inclined to attempt C-speed movement, and I for one would still be inclined to be impressed whether or not they succeed, simply because diamond hulls are SOOOOOOO COOOOOL! 0|=-)

 

[mcbethcg]

Personally, I think that trying to entirely stop impacts with a space shield such as an iceberg is unnecessarily excessively massive.<br /><br />I would think that a better approach would be to have the a series of the thinnest possible shields positioned as far as possible in front of the ship. Paper thin shields.<br /><br />At these velocities, anything that passed through the first shield would be vaporized to the atomic level, into an expanding cloud. The idea is to be far enough behind the shield that the expanding cloud is highly rarified by the time it impacts the ship, where a diamond hull could handle it.<br /><br />New paper shields would have to be moved forward regularly as holes are punched in the front ones.<br /><br />Attached spaced armor has similarly been used on satelites to avoid damage from orbital debris and on tanks to predetonate incoming warheads. <br /><br />In addition, obviously another method of avoiding such impacts would be to minimize frontal area. Make the ship very narrow and long, like a pole.

 

[mensapsych]

Hello all, this is my first post on this board and it could very well be my last. I just had to reply to this.. I hope most of you will forgive my bluntness in the following:<br /><br /><br />Welcome, for a moment, to the world of maddad. This is an exhaustive list of the facts of the world as known by maddad:<br /><br />1. concrete very strong. nuthin harder or stronger then it<br />2. nukilar bombs very hot. nuthin evar survives nukilar bomb heat. dont blast much tho<br />4. nukilar testing only happins in deep deep holes. 500 feet sactly, evry time, evar<br />5. peeples who want you to read lots r jus like teechers they know nuthin realy they jus to dumb themselves<br />6. anythin that cant be ritten down in short so u can understand is BS<br /><br />(MAN am I sinking down to his level here ... and MAN is this what everyone else has been thinking for months??)<br /><br /><br />Anyway, after thoroughly reviewing his posts, website etc., I firmly believe (I have read this entire post now and spent my whole day doing so) that maddad is psychologically troubled. Not only insecure, I would suspect he also suffers from megalomania and very probably has severe difficulties engaging in relations with people. To me, his apparent enjoyment of this charade (on his part) of a discussion either signifies a ('twisted' would be the subjective term) megalomaniacal and sadistic compulsion to 'win' or prove his 'superiority', or an addiction to the attention he gets from posting increasingly ludicrous and infantile remarks. My guess would be both. Perhaps what winds his clock is the mere fact that highly intelligent people are listening to him, even if they do not respect a word he is saying. I would suspect he is the type of person who pesters public Mensa forums with snide remarks to boost his already inflated ego. He seems under the impression that he himself is so far 'above' others intellectually that it entitles him to fend them off with utter arrogance, and that they deserve it for being

 

[claywoman]

Thank you Mensapsych, I think you've put into words what most of us think of Maddad also...He is actually a very disturbed personality and has scared me badly a few weeks ago....

 

[revdrwho]

Just woundering why not wrinkle time, then you don't need all that sheilding or power for thrust. Oh or a diamond hull.

 

[paradoxical]

Not sure how "wrinkling time" will prevent massive deterioration of the hull from impacts. <br /><br />Then again, how does one wrinkle time? What is this wrinkling? Do you mean "warping space", i.e. travelling beyond it as opposed to through it?<br /><br />But how is that achieved without the energy of an exploding star? And the final question: how is that energy contained in a ship without vapourising it?

 

[nexium]

I believe a high percentage of the matter impacting at speeds above 0.1 c is converted to gamma rays. These will shorten the life expectancy of the crew and the electronics, even the stored replacement electronics for the century or so trip, unless the shielding is massive. So 10% may be an upper speed limit for this reason as well as errosion of the hull.<br /> Is it possible that gamma ray bursts are the result of spacecraft traveling at about 10% of light speed? The gamma may be focused into a very narrow beam (sonic booms are projected in a narrow beam) which illuminates earth for only about a second. The speed of the craft might cause the gamma to be red shifted, causing us to think the gamma source is more distant than it really is? Please comment, refute, and/or embellish. Neil

 

[mcbethcg]

Again, I think thick sheilds are a bad bad idea- they have mass that needs to be moved. Moving more mass is bad.<br /><br />When they designed the impact shields on the space station, they decided that it needed to be able to stop a pebble up to 1 cm going up to 10 km/second.<br /><br />Heres the explanation for how it works from another site:<br /><br />"The "Stuffed Whipple Shield" on ISS is supposed to work as follows: A space junk fragment hits the outer aluminum "bumper layer" and explodes due to the kinetic energy of its ~10km/sec velocity. A cone-shaped blast of metal fragments, melt droplets, and plasma strikes the intermediate layers of Kevlar "stuffing" and this material is bent inward. Due to the dispersal of the original junk particle's energy and momentum over a large area, the ~3mm aluminum pressure hull of the Station is untouched."<br /><br />The same principal would work for a higher speed objects- but I would place the outer layer kilometers ahead, instead of centimeters.<br /><br />Thin, spaced shields are the way to go. Replace ocaisionally.

 

[paradoxical]

Excellent work on that pic.<br /><br />I totally agree with your deductions. Any argument that states we can overcome hull deterioration at high speeds using energy fields or by inter-dimensional travel is purely speculative, if not impossible.

 

[mcbethcg]

The shield would be a simple rotating disk of aluminum a few millimeters thick.<br /><br />It would not be released until the acceleration phase has stopped. It could be released with considerable forward velocity.<br /><br />Inertia would keep it ahead of the ship. If there were some slight tendency for it to drift backwards, the vessel itself could slow down a tiny bit. Or move sideways and let it go past, and deploy another.<br /><br />Some math wiz needs to determine if impacts would slow it much at all- I doubt that that they would. If this were the case, then that would invalidate every solar sail idea.

 

[nexium]

My guess is 1/10th millimeters thick is sufficient, but the disk needs a radius of perhaps one kilometer. A pea size object traveling at right angles to the path of the ship at 100 kilometers per sec while the ship is traveling 10,000 kilomerters per second, allows the disk to be several hundred kilometers ahead of the ship. Several back up disks, of some what smaller radius, and closer to the ship should disipate nearly all the ions and some of the Xrays generated by the impacts. Impacts will occur 100 times more often if the ship is traveling 100 times faster than the average particle speed. With bad luck travel time will exceed a century, so there is a significant chance of a bigger than one centimeter object impacting the disk. The cone of impact debris expands perhaps one meter per millisecond, but the cone reaches the craft 100 microsecond after impact at 10,000 kilometers per second, if the disk is only one kilometer ahead of the ship. My arithmetic is likely over simplified, but I think it is in the ball park. Neil

 

[jatslo]

Excuse me? You’re talking about G forces and thrust. Once you reach a desired speed in the vacuum of space, the g forces will stabilize into weightlessness.<br /><br />Thrust can be utilized as artificial gravity; when accelerating, and decelerating, but when you are idle weightlessness sets in, which is very bad for the bones.<br /><br />Listen very carefully! You can travel as fast as you want, so long as you do not cause a paradox, and the g forces do not tear you apart.<br /><br />How fast could a ship travel if you burned the equivalent of 10,000 pounds of thrust for 17 hours in the vacuum of space, and is 10,000 pounds realistic; can a human withstand the 17 hours of G forces?<br /><br />--- Jatslo<br />

 

[cosmictraveler]

Folding spacetime is :<br /><br />I think Jabberwockey explained it as simply as possible, it's very difficult to imagine this sort of folded cloth or folded spacetime effect because it's a 4 dimentional effect. Picturing it is like trying to watch a 3D movie with one eye open. Just imagine spacetime as a stretched rubber skin like on a drum. It's usually flat. Now, lets say we place a heavy stone on it. (the stone resembles a star) now the rubber skin curves in towards the stone. If you roll a smaller ball like a marble (the marble resembles a planet of second star) it will spiral around the stone. Normally the scale is different because if you try this the marble will usually orbit the stone once or twice and hit it but in space the marble would be hundreds of times further and would take much much longer to fall into the stone. imagine the star as a very heavy soccer ball, the marble (if it were earth) would be the size of a kernel of popcorn and would be orbiting several meters away, also there is no friction to slow the marble in space, on the rubber skin, the rubber slows the marble down. There now we've defined spacetime. Now imagine this rubber skin, still stretched, was folded a few times. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>It does not require many words to speak the truth. Chief Joseph</p> </div>