Starship Asterisk*

starnut wrote:While in college (decades ago), I once wrote a computer program using the Special Theory of Relativity, to compute and list the changes (to an outside observer) in a spacecraft's physical attributes as it accelerated constantly at 1g until it reached 99.9% of the speed of light. It would take the spacecraft almost one year to reach that speed. I don't remember how the distance it would travel to reach that speed. During the voyage, its relativistic length would contract and its relativistic mass would increase. One thing I was not sure about when writing the program is whether the steady increase in relativistic mass would require even greater amount of energy to maintain the constant 1g acceleration. The mass of the spacecraft with its fuel does not increase in its proper frame.

Gary

starnut wrote: I don't think that you would be so dismissive of the risk of continually using chemical rockets if we have more accidents like the Challenger and Columbia tragedies. Each time, those accidents resulted in the complete shutdown of the manned space flights by the U.S. for several years while NASA worked to prevent their re-occurrences. We had to depend on the Russians for resupplying the ISS after the Columbia disaster. That is why I am hoping the the LHC or any other particle accelerator would enable us to understand the nature of the gravitational force and a way to control it, like we are able to control electromagnetism.

starnut wrote: Yes, and each requires corresponding amount of fuel/energy to perform. And you will also need to carry additional fuel for the return trip.

starnut wrote: I don't think they would be consider "minor" from engineering point of view. And you do need a non-rotating section if you are orbiting a planet and wanting to send out a shuttle craft without stopping the rotating section. Of course, we could put the docking port at the front end like the space station in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Gary

soupphysics wrote:
Still, we go to and from space regularly. It's not the problem, and waiting for anti gravity is not the way, since there is nothing to indicate that it is anywhere close to happening.

soupphysics wrote: Acceleration and deceleration is the same thing.

starnut wrote: Rotating a spaceship to create artificial gravity also creates all kinds of engineering problems, such as maintaining balance when internal loads shift from one side to another and stopping and restarting the rotation in order to do exterior maintenance during spacewalks. Then you need a non-rotating section for navigation, ingress and egress purposes.

soupphysics wrote: Those are minor issues.

You don't really need a non-rotating section.

You can let the the whole ship rotate, once it's done accelerating, and doesn't need much navigation for the rest of the trip, until accelerating to a stop again.

The shop would likely be accelerating for a very long time, maybe close to half the way, before "decelerating". During acceleration, you have gravity, due to the acceleration, so in that case, you don't need any rotation at all.

BMAONE23 wrote:The best solution, in my book, is to create an engine that produces a constant 1G thrust. Susatined 1G supplies the gravity and constant thrust supplies the speed. You would simply need to shut down the engines at the 1/2 way point, thruster turn the ship 180deg and then fire up the engines again. The constant 1G breaking thrust would again provide the gravity while slowly breaking to your destination. The trick is that the engines would need to be electrical as opposed to chemical.

starnut wrote: Remember what happened to the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia? Using chemical rockets to leave the Earth and atmospheric braking to return is too dangerous and inefficient. It also takes far too long to get the shuttle ready for the next flight. Better to be able to control gravity to take off and land gently. We can also use gravity control for air travels.

starnut wrote: Accelerating to near light speed is not the only problem. Decelerating when reaching your destination is another problem that also requires a lot of energy. Then there is the time dilation problem.

starnut wrote: Rotating a spaceship to create artificial gravity also creates all kinds of engineering problems, such as maintaining balance when internal loads shift from one side to another and stopping and restarting the rotation in order to do exterior maintenance during spacewalks. Then you need a non-rotating section for navigation, ingress and egress purposes.

Gary

soupphysics wrote:
Actually gravity is not what is preventing long term space travel. It's not a huge problem to go into space.

It's the unimaginable huge distances that prevent it the long trips and the energy needed to accelerate to close to light speed, and even at that speed, it is some very long trips.

Artificial gravity on a space ship is not a problem either. It can be created by rotation (centripetal force).

GOD wrote:

bystander wrote:It will be interesting to see what new answers the LHC will provide. Evidence of WIMPs, Higgs bosons, supersymmetry, gravitons????? Even more interesting, what new questions will be asked?

They are going to discover that quarks don't exist; that what they thought was a single "quark" is really a soup of many, many newly discovered smaller particles. This will lead the scientists to understand that "dark matter" is really "very, very tiny matter".

The most important new questions will be related to their discovery of the nature of different realities of vibrational frequencies. Scientists will prove that the vibrational reality in which humans reside, emanates from a higher vibrational reality. I understand many of you do not understand this yet.

starnut wrote:One thing I hope that discoveries from the LHC and other future particle colliders will lead is better understanding how the gravitational force is created. Until we learn if this fundamental force can be controlled by some artificial means, long-term space travel will remain very difficult to attain. We need to find a way to neutralize the gravitational force around a spacecraft on a planet or moon so it can lift off the surface without so much energy and to create artificial gravity inside the spacecraft for people on long space travels. Otherwise, long space voyages will remain just a pipe dream.

iamlucky13 wrote:Sorry about the misquote EMC. Interestingly, the IEDAB didn't actually say we're all dead. It just said the earth had been destroyed. Draw you own conclusions.

bystander wrote:The God Particle (higgs boson)

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/ ... nteractive

How can you create a particle with 100 to 200 times the mass of a proton by smashing two protons together?

iamlucky13 wrote:

emc wrote:"The world breathed a sigh of relief as our predicted demise - at 5pm - came and went with not even a whimper, let alone a bang."

Geeze...for something as important as this you can't trust the media. Go to an authoratative source:

http://qntm.org/?board

Or better yet, recognize it with your own eyes:

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Billions of people around the world are still in denial because of the mainstream media, saying things like "but they haven't even started colliding particles yet." Oh yeah smarty-pants? Then how come the IEDAB is reporting the world has been destroyed?

emc wrote:"The world breathed a sigh of relief as our predicted demise - at 5pm - came and went with not even a whimper, let alone a bang."

jesusfreak16 wrote:It would probably be Andromeda.
(but I'm not sure)

BMAONE23 wrote:It sits with Andromeda
Oriented just below it in these APOD's http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080124.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070721.html
and below left in this spectacular comparative image
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061228.html