Now if only...
we as a species could stop squabbling over petty things like whose cosmic wizard is the least silly and focus our efforts and resources we might actually stand a chance of making it out of this solar system...
Top boffins working at a NASA spinoff company are thrilled to announce that their plasma drive technology – potentially capable of revolutionising space travel beyond the Earth's atmosphere – has checked out A-OK in ground tests. The VX-200 blasting Argon at full bore in ground trials. Credit: Ad Astra Rocket Co What …
Let the space wizard worshippers stay here while us sensible humans jet off into the stars. They seem quite happy for everything to stay exactly as it is or even better - regress back to medieval times.
They hate new technology so I think they would probably be happy if we all left them to it.
Maybe we'll check in on them after a couple of hundred years if we fancy a laugh.
The "teach a man to fish" guys are spot on here. 5.7 newtons of force applied to a 100 ton spaceship, you're talking a 10 millionth of a g force. Paltry, but if you apply the force continuously in the right direction, VERY useful. In the ISS it would let them cheaply and effortlessly raise or lower their orbit. For long range missions, add more motors and ramp up the power - apparently the VASIMIR scales very nicely.
Best thing to happen to space science in 40 years.
F=ma, where 'F' is force (5.7 Newtons in this case), 'm' is the mass being accelerated and 'a' is trhe resulting acceleration.
Rearranging gives a=F/m
As an interplanetary spacecraft is likely to have a mass in the order of a few tonnes, 'a' is going to be very, very small.
The advantage of this type of engine is it can apply this tiny acceleration for days, weeks and months at a time rather than the few seconds of a more powerful but less fuel efficient 'firework' type engine.
5.7N(force) cannot be translated to G (acceleration) without a mass component (f=ma).
the simple way to visuallise 5.7N is to imagine how much Mass it could hold against G. ie m=f/a therefore 5.7N can hold 0.581KG steady (levitate it) in 9.81m/s^2 gravity. ie this engine could hold 581grams in a hover. Hopefully you can visulise holding 581g in your hand, that is 5.7N force in earths gravity 1G = 9.81m/s^2.going further of all the items on my desk in front of me, the metal stapler is closest to 580g.
> what does a sustained 5.7N translate to in G?
It doesn't. The Newton is a unit of force, "g" is a measure of acceleration.
If we were to assume a mass of one tonne for the drive unit (it was described as about the same size as a small car), we'd get an acceleration of 5.7mm/s^2, or approx 0.00058g.
Not as quick as my bike, but likely to go a bit further without refuelling...
Vic.
Gravity is an acceleration. Newtons are a unit of force. The standard equation between them is
Force (N) = Mass (g) x Acceleration (m/s/s)
The closest relevant unit is the gram-force ((g*m)/(s*s)), which uses the Terran gravity constant (G) for acceleration. Based on calculations, 5.7N equals 581.238241397 gram-force.
As the article states and as the example illustrates, 5.7N isn't exactly a huge force, but if allowed to exert over a long period, it can still translate into a LOT of acceleration.
*pffffffffffffft*
First off, M/AM reactions emit all usable energy as photons. So this gives you two choices:
1) Capture the photons for use as electricity (our extant technology here is inefficient)
2) Use the photons to superheat a propellant, sort of like...and ion engine!
Given the mass of the equipment you'd need to create antimatter containment bottles, M/AM RA type engines wouldn't be more efficient than fission/ion engines even if you could recover 100% of the energy from the conversion of both the matter and the anti-matter. Problem is...we can't recover 100% of the usable energy from a M/AM reaction...and 50% of it escapes as neutrinos anyways!
When you figure out how to capture neutrinos and derive power from them, we'll talk. Also, you'll have solved all of humanity’s power problems until the end of time. Until then, give me a fission reactor, baby!
Hell, give me one next door to my house. Anything’s better than these toxic coal plants. We don’t get enough sunlight at my latitude for photovoltaic to be useful (if it actually is anywhere,) and windmills seem to consume more energy in their manufacture than we actually could extract from the atmosphere here. Hydro and fission, baby: only way to go!
And in space, the hydro is all frozen…
"..no one can hear you scream. So why are the radiators(?) on that uber-rocket thing streamlined?
Grips my tits when spacecraft are made to look and manoeuvre like aircraft..."
Presumably because they need to be transported to space through the earths atmosphere before their interstellar jaunt. I agree, once up there, a ruddy great cube (ala Borg) would be fine and dandy (barring the sparse hydrogen getting draggy when travelling at silly speed*), just getting it there would be an arse
(*this thing seems fast, but I don't think it would be fast enough for this to be an actual issue)
When Lewis mentions "nuclear", he frequently deliberately omits the distinction between nuclear fission reactor technology and radioisotope generators, perhaps because he's riding some nuclear high horse or other. That various missions might use the latter technology is nothing new - I guess that's what the Mars Rover references are suggesting - but although the former technology is also nothing new, it's also controversial for the reasons you give and others: look up RORSAT on Wikipedia, for instance.
Yes, that would be the way to go. Also un-used enriched Uranium fuel rods aren't a serious hazard. Enriched Uranium is only a few times more radioactive than natural Uranium, and Uranium oxide pellets in Zirconium tubes are pretty robust. We'll be OK just as long as a well-used reactor never re-enters, with all its accumulated fission by-products. Dump used fuel rods into the Sun?
actually i am curious about this, i have been for years, obviously blasting used fuel rods in to space on chemical rockets isnt a smart idea given that the rockets are essentially a barely contained explotion that quite often do blow up but in all seariousness assuming we could get that stuff in to space what would be the effect of blasting it in to the sun, it wouldnt get anywhere near the sun before burning up and everything around there is somewhat hazardus to us anyway.
before the eco folk go on about not dumping our waste in to some other backyard which i would agree with, just think for a second what would actually be left? i dont know the answer so im just asking the question