Atomic Rockets

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I ran across this today while looking for information for a story. Since I know others have requested information about space travel and the craft to get you there I thought I would give everyone a heads up! Yes, Gwen I'm talking about you! :) I have no idea as the accuracy but it does seem to go over the basics.

Hey, they mention Heinlein and Clarke so they can't be wrong can they!

Hugs
Grover
Oops! I forgot to put in the site link! My bad! :)

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

Comments

Clarke? What does a

Clarke? What does a wilderness explorer have to do with Atomic power? :)


I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.

bomb powered ships

in john ringo's live free or die story. he uses bombs as a engine to move his battle station/planetoids/arc

Bomb powered ships..

I believe that was the quick and dirty method used in 'Footfall' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle to get hastily built human ships into orbit and out to attack an invaders mothership as well.

Project Orion

erica jane's picture

Was a Nuclear Pulse Drive, that would use nuclear bombs to propel a ship through space. It's on Wikipedia.

Edit: that will teach me to keep reading before answering. Miss Penny beat me to it.

~And so it goes...

Lewis Clark

I think you were thinking of Lewis C. Clark, the turn of the century Eagle Scout, Wilderness Leader and Girl Guide. Arthur C. Clarke was a science fiction visionary and the two shared only a name and passions for Snickerdoodles.

Thought you said,

Atomic Rooster

Late 1960's/early 1970's Prog Rock Band. I was listening to their 2nd Albim, 'Death Walks Behind You' on Vinyl only last week.

Arthur C Clarke, wrote 2001, A space odessy. His articles in Wireless World about Geostationary Satellites were IMHO truly brilliant. He was involved with the development of RADAR during WW2.

His name is often mentioned with Assimov and Heinlien when people talk about the Golden Age of S.F.

Darn, and here I thought

Darn, and here I thought maybe it was just his first partner before Meriwether Lewis.


I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.

Thank you Grover!

One of the first things I began to understand about space travel is that any where you go, it is unimaginably far. Even if you have a drive that can move you at 1000 times the speed of light, it is still far too far!

Our own Galaxy is 200,000+ light years in diameter. So, even at 1000 times the speed of light, it is still far too far to travel across at 200 years. So, this means that humanity is confined to a small part of our Galaxy for the foreseeable future. And, it is large enough to occupy our minds for a considerable amount of time. The "Warp 9" from Star Trek is a mere drop in the bucket

So, the former implies that unless we can some how "fold space" as in "Dune", humans are destined to grow old and perish. Not being a Physicist, it seems that this folding of space might take a lot of energy, perhaps more than is in even our Sun. Taking a step back, it is clear that humanity is like the bug that splatted on your windshield. We are truly inconsequential in the most conclusive manner.

One of our writers, whose name escapes me, name begins with an "A" I think, wrote about different dimensional levels and differing energy levels. Hmmm, to me this idea has merit, but sadly it is likely only spoken of by wizened old Theoretical Physicists, over a pint and a toke, late at night, when the moon is full.

In the story I am working on now, I lacked the chutzpah to address the travel issue, choosing instead to write it from the point of view of someone who lacked even the basic understanding of how the ship they were riding got where ever it was going. She is a botanist and lacks even the smallest care how the engines work, though this character could easily have been male. It is simply more pleasant for me to write about female protagonists.

A case in point, I read the other day, that large ocean going ships with those engines which have pistons the size of a large barrel, may have a bad piston changed as the engine runs at perhaps 100 rpms. Hmmph ! They have some mysterious way of disengaging part of the works, do they? I simply can not imagine how an engine man, could heft a 100 lb rod end nut and get it in time with the moving crank throw. Time for some more coffee, where is that cocaine?

You're probably thinking

You're probably thinking about the Emma Maersk. They didn't replace the piston - was a cylinder head stud.

(I just spent a bunch of time researching the question)

You _can_ do some repairs on a working engine - there are eve a few adjustments that have to be made with the engine turning.

Now, if they had more than one engine, and were using them to power electric motors driving the propellers, they _could_ overdrive the other engines to maintain voltage/amperage while shutting down the one with the broken piston, in order to change it out.


I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.

You don't actually have to know the technicals

shiinaai's picture

I mean although Star Trek said that their ships travelled faster than light, they never actually explained how it was done. Instead, they added the terms 'warp core' to tell how FTL (which consume lots of energy) is sustained. They added the term 'dylithium matrix' to explain how they managed to control the warp phenomenon. The added 'warp bubble' when they realized that Einstein's Theory of Relativity forbids FTL, that pretty much meant that everyone travelling at Warp 8 will regress into babies within a few minutes. When they found out that teleporter technology was impossible, they added 'heisenburg compensator'. When they found out that at that speed, everything alive will liquify against the wall, they created 'inertial dampeners'. Warp drive in Star Trek is basically similar to punching your spaceship at super FTL speed through space, protected by a 'warp bubble' that keeps the people inside from getting younger. That means it's entirely possible for the spaceship to hit celestial bodies, like planets, asteroids, other ships or be affected by solar winds. That's why the created the concept of 'navigational deflectors', to keep the ship safe on its FTL journey. Because at that speed, being hit by an iron asteroid the size of a basketball will punch a very big hole in a starship.

Andromeda by Gene Roddenberry (creator of ST: TOS) does not believe in FTL at all. Their FTL involved using a living being's instincts to find a path among the twisting tendrils of subspace tunnel that connected every single world and system within the three galaxies. Though they do have an FTL ship in one episode, the Bellerophon, created before humanity were given the 'slipstream' technology that 'runs like a wild horse'.

Battlestar Galactica doesn't use FTL either. They do use 'jump drive' which allowed them to fold space allowing instantenous travel between one point to the other. In a way, one can say they're FTL, but not FTL at the same time.

The concept of jump drive is also shared between other sci-fi movies and shows, simply because it doesn't trample on Einstein's Theory of Relativity, unlike Star Trek. Star Trek trampled everything, even itself.

The movie Event Horizon also uses the concept of jump drive. However, there was a mistake somewhere and instead of jumping into another point in space, they jumped into Hell.

Many other sci-fi, such as Stargate, Babylon 5 and Starship Troopers uses hyperdrive, a method where they punch through into another dimension which uses a different set of rules from the primary space, thus allowing them to circumnavigate Einstein's Theory of Relativity without trampling it. Later in Babylon 5 story, they invented the quantum drive, which allowed them to punch through into a deeper hyperspace, allowing much faster travel. The Vorlon invented the method of travelling into 'Third Space' which supposedly would allow them to travel faster, but unfortunately, the "Third Space' is populated by evil creatures. The concept of hyperspace is often described as considering space as a globe. Normal space travel is similar to us walking on the globe's surface. Faster engines only described as running or taking a car. Hyperspace is like tunneling through the globe to each the other side in a straight line, considerably reducing travel speed.

Other sci-fis such as Space, Above and Beyond uses natural wormholes. These doesn't trample on Einstein's Theory of Relativity, they use a different (real) theory altogether. However, these have the limitation of not being able to strike anytime they want to and have to wait for a wormhole to open before they can reach faraway places. The enemy does have the technology to force open a wormhole however, which gave them a tactical advantage.

The primary mode of travel in Stargate is the Stargate Network, a kind of theoretical device that allows the creation of wormholes between two separate 'gates'. The theory of a stargate is accepted as sound, but flawed and we do not have the materials nor the knowledge to actually create it yet.

Or you can just use the concept of 'sleeper ships' if time isn't an urgency. Basically it's a kind of spaceship that travels slowly, without FTL and have its crew asleep most of the time, relying mostly on the computer to find a suitable planet for colonization. This was a concept used in Firefly and Serenity, as their spaceships don't use FTL.

Prometheus and starships in Aliens also use sleeper ships, though their sleeper ships have FTL. The reason for them having to use sleeper pods is because in their universe, living beings can't survive the FTL.

As you can see, all these are theoretical. You don't have to explain everything. You just need to know what you want to do and make it believeable. Before Stargate (the movie), nobody thought that you can travel to another planet using circular stones. You just need to have creativity, or just tweak an existing method if you can't think of any. I'm using a new technique called quantum tunneling in one of my sci-fi books, which hasn't been continued for some time now. I can explain it, but if asked for technicalities or calculations, I won't be able to answer.

Hope this helps.

The thing about that webpage...

For much of the information, they've removed the FICTION from science fiction. If you can control gravity, you can build your ship any way you want. Star Trek didn't use rockets for propulsion.

Rockets, however they are fueled, are a horrible way to travel.

The whole page is based upon science as we currently know it. Mostly Einstein didn't say that you can't travel faster than the speed of light, his equation doesn't even say that, he said that you can't travel at the speed of light. The trick is going from slower than the speed of light to going faster than the speed of light without going the speed of light.

It would be like having a webpage that was set during the age sailing ships (prior to any steamships). That page would say that without oarsmen it is impossible to sail directly into the wind, and all the other limitations of sailing ships. Once Steamships and beyond were developed, everything on it would laughably outdated.

On a not completely different matter, Heinlein may have been right (again). http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/05/health/young-blood-mice-aging/

We can not travel in Space.

There are several physiological issues that prevent long term space travel.

As far as the deck arrangement, it has been the same since man first built ships for on water. As I think about it, we can probably do our own solar system in reaction propelled ships. Failing to gain propulsion faster than light will mean any human expedition will need to be a Multi-generational vessel that can shelter life indefinitely.

So, perhaps the only thing that will bring about sufficient scientific advancement will be the desperation caused by the destruction of Earth.

That,

Or simple technological advancements. Biotech is advancing faster than most other sciences right now.