NoExhaustPropulsion - who will be the first?

[barrykirk]

Thats it Tap_Sa, I'm buying my ticket right now!!! LEO here I come.<br /><br />FOTFLMAO

 

[drwayne]

Sorry sir, it took me a while, the diagram kind of threw me a bit....<br /><br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[revolutionary]

I thought the trebuchet was a french invention.

 

[drwayne]

Wasn't that the invention that catpulted them to fame?<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[why06]

Man-It has been a month and nobody has answered your post yet...Well tell me something are you talking about space propulsion or say "cars." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div>________________________________________ <br /></div><div><ul><li><font color="#008000"><em>your move...</em></font></li></ul></div> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Yes, a little more detail would be helpful. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

As this is the space business and technology forum, I suspect he is referring to reactionless propulsion: inertial drives, Dean Drives, even a concept I had a decade ago to evolve the Dean Drive.<br /><br />However, to date, Dr. John Cramer has mathematically demonstrated why such devices don't work, but he admits that they don't work ONLY when the working masses are not travelling at relativistic speed ranges. Due to mass increases with speed at high gamma values, Cramer has admitted that a Dean Drive-class device whose working mass orbited at speeds varying between majority fractions of light speed, the gamma variation would actually create a reactionless thrust vector.<br /><br />The problem of course, is devising a device capable of this. Normal mechanical systems strain beyond their limits at g levels a tiny fraction of a percent of c. A quantum black hole, however, would do the trick, using its charge to create an electromagnetic bolo.<br /><br />However, we don't have any quantum black holes handy at this point, so we need to try to think more reasonably about this.<br /><br />I have wondered if the gamma effect must operate at a fraction of c in a vacuum, or if you can use fluids with low c speeds to bring the effect "down to earth".

 

[tomnackid]

We can also look at drives that are well within the realm of physics and don't expend reaction mass. Things like light sails, microwave sails, magnetic sails, elctrodynamic tethers, particle beam propulsion etc. <br /><br />Dr. Robert Forward conceptually designed an antigravity drive based on current gravitational theory. It hinged on moving fluid through a ring of helically wound tubing and constantly reversing the flow. The catch? The fluid density would have to be on the order of neutron star material and it would have to move at close to the speed of light! But hey, that's "only" and engineering problem!

 

[mlorrey]

"only" an engineering problem, is right. <br /><br />However, I'd like to see some references for the requirement for neutron star density and light speed velocity. As recall, Forward wanted high neutron matter as a plasma (mercury, lead, etc) in a toroidal accelerator. The heavy ions would follow a helical pattern around the torus naturally, at tens of thousands of RPMs. The actual velocity of the ions along their helical paths would in fact be in the range of high gamma values ("close to the speed of light" is actually anything above 0.5 c, where gamma goes above 2.)<br /><br />There is a rumor thats been going around the net since the 90's that this is in fact a tested system on the TR-3, though that may just be tinfoil hat conjecture.

 

[nexium]

One we can begin with today's technology, which takes near infinate amounts of money, is to launch several laser arays in hyperbolic orbit anually. Nuclear and solar powered. These do sling shot manuvers to gain more speed. In 1000 years, or so, these would be scattered radomly about the solar system including the Kupier belt and the Oort cloud. Solar sail craft could then be suplimented by a laser beam in the rather rare periods, when they were within a million miles of a laser array. The cost would be partially justified by the fact that the laser arrays could minutely alter the course of asteroids and comets threatening Earth, and the beam of laser light could be tracked by telescopes to help chart small asteroids and small comets that would be 30th magnetude illuminated only by sun light. Neil