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Post by wvengineer on May 3, 2015 1:53:54 GMT
The thing that interests me about the Quantum Vacuum engine is that in theory*, the limiting factor to such an engine is power supply. With enough juice you can push a ship as fast as you want. That will be a major shift in spacecraft design. Currently, One of the largest design considerations is fuel and the majority of that fuel going towards propellant. Without the need for propellant, there is going to be a major push for more powerful generators at lower weight.
*Putting it into real life practice may be a completely different story.
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Post by the light works on May 3, 2015 2:39:42 GMT
The thing that interests me about the Quantum Vacuum engine is that in theory*, the limiting factor to such an engine is power supply. With enough juice you can push a ship as fast as you want. That will be a major shift in spacecraft design. Currently, One of the largest design considerations is fuel and the majority of that fuel going towards propellant. Without the need for propellant, there is going to be a major push for more powerful generators at lower weight. *Putting it into real life practice may be a completely different story. I can see where the question of whether you will have to have more fuel to generate the power for your spacedrive than it would take for a rocket might come into play.
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Post by Cybermortis on May 3, 2015 4:37:45 GMT
Actually I would suspect that there would be some limits as to how much thrust you could produce before the engine fails. Might even be limits as to how long such an engine could be operated before the materials it is comprised of start to degrade from use.
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Post by GTCGreg on May 3, 2015 15:11:46 GMT
Actually I would suspect that there would be some limits as to how much thrust you could produce before the engine fails. Might even be limits as to how long such an engine could be operated before the materials it is comprised of start to degrade from use. The idea is for low thrust for a long time. You're not going to launch something into orbit with it but once it's in space you use it to keep accelerating or positioning. The "engine" is nothing more than a specially shaped empty chamber powered by pumping microwaves into it. Not much to go wrong. As for fuel, if it's used for positioning satellites or even the ISS, you could get the power from solar panels. If it's for deep space use, an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), which can produce power for 50 years or more, is ideal. We already use RTGs for powering the instrumentation and radios in our deep space probes.
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Post by wvengineer on May 3, 2015 15:28:56 GMT
Not Sure how well RTG's would work for this thing. It requires a fair about of power. The test model uses 2.5KW to generate a few milli-neutons of force*. Compare that to the 65W that the RTG on the Cassini probe generates. Without propellant, you do have available mass for a larger generator, but you won't be able to get the power you need with RTGs. WE are going to need something else for a power source.
* I will give you that that is a test model, and efficiency will likely get better as the technology matures.
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Post by Cybermortis on May 3, 2015 16:32:22 GMT
Actually I would suspect that there would be some limits as to how much thrust you could produce before the engine fails. Might even be limits as to how long such an engine could be operated before the materials it is comprised of start to degrade from use. The idea is for low thrust for a long time. You're not going to launch something into orbit with it but once it's in space you use it to keep accelerating or positioning. The "engine" is nothing more than a specially shaped empty chamber powered by pumping microwaves into it. Not much to go wrong. By 'engine' I don't just mean the device itself, but all the other systems directly connected to it such as power cables. There would be a limit as to how much power a generator could safely produce, a limit to how much of that power you could send to the engine and a limit as to the amount of microwaves you could produce before you burn the emitter out. (Yes, I know its not called that) If the engine produces heat, either in itself or in some of its subsystems, that would provide another limitation as you could only run the engine for so long before that part of the system overheated and failed. Assuming that this engine works as intended. The only thing that seems to be stopping us from being able to produce something that looks like the USS Enterprise* is the power source. For this we are probably looking at fusion power, which is clean and would allow for refueling in space...at least in theory. (*That might not be as strange as it sounds. Think about it, in an ideal world you'd want a second engine for redundency and you'd probably want to keep those engines away from the crew's living areas just in case the shielding fails. So...basically you have two cylinders set on booms with the living area between the two. Humm, where have I seen that kind of design before....?)
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Post by GTCGreg on May 3, 2015 17:11:25 GMT
Not Sure how well RTG's would work for this thing. It requires a fair about of power. The test model uses 2.5KW to generate a few milli-neutons of force*. Compare that to the 65W that the RTG on the Cassini probe generates. Without propellant, you do have available mass for a larger generator, but you won't be able to get the power you need with RTGs. WE are going to need something else for a power source. The RTG on Voyager 1 had an initial output of 470 Watts and it isn't that large. After 25 years, it still produces almost 300 Watts of power. We're not looking at a Star Trek Enterprise size spacecraft, but think how fast Voyager 1 would be traveling today if it had a constant trust of even a fraction of a Newton for the past 35 years. I think this is more what NASA has in mind. Not gallivanting all over the galaxy in maned spacecraft.
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Post by Cybermortis on May 3, 2015 18:00:57 GMT
But was Voyager fully powered for its entire flight? Or did they put it into a low powered 'standby' mode for much of its trip?
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Post by wvengineer on May 3, 2015 18:17:53 GMT
By 'engine' I don't just mean the device itself, but all the other systems directly connected to it such as power cables. There would be a limit as to how much power a generator could safely produce, a limit to how much of that power you could send to the engine and a limit as to the amount of microwaves you could produce before you burn the emitter out. (Yes, I know its not called that) If the engine produces heat, either in itself or in some of its subsystems, that would provide another limitation as you could only run the engine for so long before that part of the system overheated and failed. Assuming that this engine works as intended. The only thing that seems to be stopping us from being able to produce something that looks like the USS Enterprise* is the power source. For this we are probably looking at fusion power, which is clean and would allow for refueling in space...at least in theory. (*That might not be as strange as it sounds. Think about it, in an ideal world you'd want a second engine for redundency and you'd probably want to keep those engines away from the crew's living areas just in case the shielding fails. So...basically you have two cylinders set on booms with the living area between the two. Humm, where have I seen that kind of design before....?) The current concepts of this engine are based around a ring shape. A ship concept might be close to the USS Enterprise (XCV 330).
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Post by GTCGreg on May 3, 2015 22:07:03 GMT
But was Voyager fully powered for its entire flight? Or did they put it into a low powered 'standby' mode for much of its trip? It doesn't really matter as far is the RTG goes. They have two operating mode's. On and on. Their operational life is strictly based on the half life of what ever isotope they are using to generate the heat. They are going to generate that heat whether you converted it to electricity or not.
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Post by wvengineer on May 5, 2015 15:33:10 GMT
One thing that is throwing me about this is a lot of news agencies covering this are spouting it as a first step towards faster-than-light travel. However, everything I am seeing shows this as a new form of thruster. Does this thing actually warp space-time? or is it simply a more efficient way of moving a craft in normal space?
So is this a step towards FTL or just sensationalist journalism?
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Post by the light works on May 5, 2015 15:52:57 GMT
One thing that is throwing me about this is a lot of news agencies covering this are spouting it as a first step towards faster-than-light travel. However, everything I am seeing shows this as a new form of thruster. Does this thing actually warp space-time? or is it simply a more efficient way of moving a craft in normal space? So is this a step towards FTL or just sensationalist journalism? I think yes to both. it is a step to FTL in the manner of speaking that ANY advance in transportation technology is a step towards FTL travel. however, it is also, at heart, a sensationalist statement.
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Post by GTCGreg on May 5, 2015 16:16:10 GMT
One thing that is throwing me about this is a lot of news agencies covering this are spouting it as a first step towards faster-than-light travel. However, everything I am seeing shows this as a new form of thruster. Does this thing actually warp space-time? or is it simply a more efficient way of moving a craft in normal space? So is this a step towards FTL or just sensationalist journalism? Definitely sensationalism. But what catches your attention more. A headline that reads; "NASA invents a thruster that produces a few ounces of force powered by a microwave oven". or "NASA creates Warp Drive!" Let's not let the facts get in the way of a good headline.
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Post by silverdragon on May 6, 2015 8:52:26 GMT
Faster than Light and Object Avoidance. Two discussion points that are inevitably linked.
If you cant "see" ahead, how do you steer?...
"Prediction". This is about the only suggestion I have seen that makes sense, if you take a pic of whats ahead, and take another one shortly after, you have a reference as to what is moving and where, and can possibly predict what will be where in the future. Then you can plan a route. Maybe.
If you have planned to pass close by a sun that may have already super-nova'd, in real time, but as we are 100mil lightyears away, hasnt in the light we are seeing, how do we predict that it hasnt already by the time we got there.
I have to think outside linear time, and that causes a headache?... What we are seeing in what we know of the universe is not just old, its so old that its before the earth was this shape, we see ancient history, and in universal time scale, thats a long time. We may be looking through telescopes at "new" planets that have in real time not only evolved, but have had and passed through their own civilisation stages already....
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Post by Cybermortis on May 6, 2015 11:52:13 GMT
One thing that is throwing me about this is a lot of news agencies covering this are spouting it as a first step towards faster-than-light travel. However, everything I am seeing shows this as a new form of thruster. Does this thing actually warp space-time? or is it simply a more efficient way of moving a craft in normal space? So is this a step towards FTL or just sensationalist journalism? Definitely sensationalism. But what catches your attention more. A headline that reads; "NASA invents a thruster that produces a few ounces of force powered by a microwave oven". or "NASA creates Warp Drive!" Let's not let the facts get in the way of a good headline. Reading on it looks like the 'warp drive' headline is a slight misreading/understanding of what the guys at NASA said. Basically they said that the readings they were getting (and which were I think duplicated in the vacume testing) were consitent with having created microscopic warp bubbles. While this engine design wouldn't allow for faster than light travel, being at heart a conventional reaction thruster. It is potentually a major breakthrough because if they are right it means that it might be a lot easier to create a warp 'bubble' that would allow faster than light travel. Until very recently calculations indicated that while the warp drive was theoretically sound, it would require more energy that we could possibly produce (in fact the early calculations indicated you'd need more energy than exists in the universe). If however you can produce 'micro' bubbles with very small amounts of power then we might well be able to make larger bubbles with existing technology, which would allow for faster than light travel (or close to light speeds, even being able to hit a quarter of the speed of light would make exploring the solar system and exploiting resources cost-effective. Consider that these kind of speeds would allow you to travel to Mars and back in a day. The question as to how you would navigate at faster than light speeds is one that most people never consider. In Star Trek and a lot of 'older' Sci-Fi it is either noted or assumed that ships can use sensors that detect particles/energies that move faster than light; Which is why the USS Enterprise can pick up ships moving at warp speed from several light years away while she herself is moving at warp speeds. More 'modern' Sci-Fi that is based more on 'realistic' physics usually has no such technology or physics at work. Ships use sensors that are limited to the speed of light, which means that they are blind when they hit the FTL drive and as such have to carefully plot their course because they have no way of knowing what is at their destination...or between them and where they want to go. The reimagined Battlestar Galactica and even Star Wars universes work this way. In the short term such problems would, well, not be a problem as far as exploring our solar system is concerned. We have enough data to be able to plot a course that *should* allow a ship to avoid flying into anything and that data is fairly accurate due to looking over what is on the galactic scale the cushion on the couch. When/if we start going futher afield the most likely way to deal with these problems would be to make shorter 'hops'. Basically flying ahead for a short(ish) distance then stopping to do scans to get an idea of what is ahead. (Submarines do the much the same thing when on patrol as passive sonar doesn't work all that well when you are moving at high speed). Maps of routes would be taken and passed on to other ships, with 'trade' routes of known safe paths being used by most ships. New routes would need to be explored/cleared before most ships would use them. The most likely way this would be done is through large ships with a lot of sensors and computing power, which would skip ahead and stop to take readings and most likely send out unmanned probes to the next scanning location, to make sure there wasn't anything that would destroy the ship where they intended to stop. A more interesting question is how you'd communicate with ships over any distance. Unless the technology allows for faster than light commuications as well we'd have trouble keeping routes updated over any distance.
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Post by the light works on May 6, 2015 14:36:52 GMT
Faster than Light and Object Avoidance. Two discussion points that are inevitably linked. If you cant "see" ahead, how do you steer?... "Prediction". This is about the only suggestion I have seen that makes sense, if you take a pic of whats ahead, and take another one shortly after, you have a reference as to what is moving and where, and can possibly predict what will be where in the future. Then you can plan a route. Maybe. If you have planned to pass close by a sun that may have already super-nova'd, in real time, but as we are 100mil lightyears away, hasnt in the light we are seeing, how do we predict that it hasnt already by the time we got there. I have to think outside linear time, and that causes a headache?... What we are seeing in what we know of the universe is not just old, its so old that its before the earth was this shape, we see ancient history, and in universal time scale, thats a long time. We may be looking through telescopes at "new" planets that have in real time not only evolved, but have had and passed through their own civilisation stages already.... that's why Han Solo made the comment that flying through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops. Star Trek also uses navigational deflectors to brush aside routine space dust.
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Post by wvengineer on Jul 8, 2015 3:11:03 GMT
By 'engine' I don't just mean the device itself, but all the other systems directly connected to it such as power cables. There would be a limit as to how much power a generator could safely produce, a limit to how much of that power you could send to the engine and a limit as to the amount of microwaves you could produce before you burn the emitter out. Okay, different view of this. If it uses high power microwaves, what will the "exhaust" be like? Are the radio waves small enough in bandwidth that they will dissipate harmlessly? Or are they focused enough that they will fry anything in it's wake? Or will they be so broadband that they act like an EM pulse and drown out radio communications for half the planet? I'd hate to see a promising new technology get shutdown by FCC Part 15 rules because it cause any harmful interference to existing communications systems.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 8, 2015 8:05:52 GMT
Question on navigation....
I see that the idea of two pods outside to create thrust, star trek Enterprise style, is voiced.
I question, should that not be THREE pods?... Space is tree dimensional, even on its basic setting, to thrust in three dimensions, unless the two pods are vectored thrust, which is complicating the idea, just varying the thrust of three engines would be better for navigation....
So what is better, two vectored thrust or three variable thrust.(Or more for redundancy sake...) Or even [three] vectored thrust for low speed and just vary the thrust for high speed....
And I know space is supposed to have more than 3 dimension, but until you can show me the fourth (time?) being variable, I cant agree to that right now, so can we keep it to just the three possible dimensions we have **Right Now**, proposed test flight to the moon and back sort of thing?...
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 8, 2015 8:13:06 GMT
By 'engine' I don't just mean the device itself, but all the other systems directly connected to it such as power cables. There would be a limit as to how much power a generator could safely produce, a limit to how much of that power you could send to the engine and a limit as to the amount of microwaves you could produce before you burn the emitter out. Okay, different view of this. If it uses high power microwaves, what will the "exhaust" be like? Are the radio waves small enough in bandwidth that they will dissipate harmlessly? Or are they focused enough that they will fry anything in it's wake? Or will they be so broadband that they act like an EM pulse and drown out radio communications for half the planet? I'd hate to see a promising new technology get shutdown by FCC Part 15 rules because it cause any harmful interference to existing communications systems. My suspicions are that any kind of planetary wide interference would be controlled, and any engine that would wipe out the whole worlds coms would be censored to ONLY be used when its far away that it didnt cause damage. However, perhaps they would only know when its actually tested... In that way, I would expect the whole world could just stand by and watch for a few minutes whilst they did the initial test, and excuse the possible interference... If they said to me you are possibly going to loose your radio station for a whole 60 seconds whilst they test an engine that could possibly power the future, hell, I aint complaining..... However, looking at the design, the microwaves would be no more than microwave radio transmissions type of emissions, as in a tight bandwidth that may just cook a chicken if it was sat on the antenna, but otherwise, unless you were in the direct path of the exhaust, would not affect you at all?.. So if they are testing it in orbit, just make sure its aimed at Russia...
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 8, 2015 8:17:40 GMT
Just a thought. Take this idea to create thrust from low power radio waves... Attach two to either end of a long boom, heavily shielded, and let them rip... Do you have a rotating turbine?
How much power are you creating?...
Nah seriously, you cant be taking out more than you put in, could you?
Again with the awkward questions......
But then, if it proves that you can create a LOT of thrust that way, attach them to a turbo-prop.... Are we anywhere close to a "electric" jet engine in the possibilities of being able to power a light aircraft.
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