Subject:
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Re: Transit Time to Mars
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Fri, 17 Dec 1999 16:16:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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269 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.pun, Michael Horvath writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.pun, James Brown writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.pun, Todd Lehman writes:
> > > In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Rob Hendrix writes:
> > > > try "anti-matter" fuel cells...(use your imagination here)...you could
> > > > travel to mars and back on like 1 atom of it.
> What about those solar-powered space-sailboats that surf the cosmic rays.
> Theoretically, they could approach the speed of light, but I wouldn't want to
> hit a dust particle at that speed!
> (Not to mention that you would have to convert conventional matter into a more
> basic type of particle in order to go that fast. Of course, you could just
> digitize everything and create a long-range transporter, like on Star Trek).
Oddly enough most of the technology being discussed here actually exists, even
though many of you would debate that fact. I would like to share my thoughts
on this matter, as well as addressing the poster's original question here.
Flight Time to Mars: I would estimate at 1G constant propulsion you should
reach there between 24 hours and 48 hours depending on when you start the
trip. That seems like a short amount of time, but consider that once you get
there, you need to slow down to land. Inertia has a nasty way of being like
that.
Ion Drive Engines: Currently they are impractical for any use other than small
robotic craft. They are capable of producing near light speed velocities
through several month acceleration cycles. They are expensive to construct,
but this may be the cargo transport method of the colonizing era.
Nuclear Drive Engines: Messy in atmosphere, but terribly efficient in space.
Radiation is a high concern for the crew of a nuclear powered ship, but
residual radiation probably wouldn't even touch a candle to the radiation that
already resides in space ambiently. I wouldn't trust a nuke powered craft (if
the engine blows...no one can hear you scream in space)
Chemical Drive Engines: Expensive and impractical for long duration flights.
Also, I would assume unreliable due to the vacuum-like nature of space. But
that is speculative.
Solar Sails: and you thought nuke radiation was bad!!! wait till you get a
healthy dose of solar radiation that is trapped with you as you travel outward
from the sun. (sorry, no return trips)
Anti-Matter Drives: Thanks to some french scientists, we have actually seen
and recorded anti-matter. The problem is, it takes so much energy to create
it, that it would have been better to use that energy to propel the ship in the
first place. (plus there's that nasty bit about how anti-matter isn't stable
and doesn't exist for very long unless you apply constant energy to it).
Transporter Beams: Currently Impractical for solid objects (but great for
particles!). I think it is more likely that we will see communications
applications of transporter technology before we are able to beam ourselves up.
Current technology has proven that we can send light beams from one location to
another using "spooky action". This has interesting applications for deep
space travel, and remaining in communication.
other technologies on the horizon:
Gravity Well Engines: your basic "fold space" method of travel. More rumor
than actual show, it is purported that both an American and a Russian venture
have independently designed gravity well engines and are planning for
commercial deployment by 2006. Travel from Los Angeles to Tokyo in under 4
seconds! Now I don't know much about the technology, but it seems to me that
if you dropped a gravity well near a planet that it would do serious damage.
Maybe they have that worked out? The cool part about gravity wells is that
they provide inertial dampening gratis! It just happens to be a side effect of
the engine :)
plasma engines: a super heated chemical engine. I only read a short snippet,
and it wasn't very descriptive.
There are others, but they are too fantastic for me to list here.
In general, I have found that items reported take about ten years to show up
commercially from the date I first read about them. Case and point, air cars.
I first heard about air cars on Lifestyles of the rich and famous in 1991. In
1997, there was a special about them on Beyond 2000, and most recently CNN has
run an article on them that included the introductory price tag ($1,000,000
USD). They have a cruising speed of 300mph and can fly as slow as 120 mph
(well actually, in all three incarnations of the report, they show it hovering,
floating out of the garage, executing a VTOL, and cruising at a height of about
500-1000').
I figure you should start seeing the air cars as early as late 2000, early
2001. Pilot license IS required.
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Transit Time to Mars
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| (...) By way of a purely information-gathering question, as opposed to some smart- alec sniping, I ask the following: Using this 1G acceleration, rather than having some last minute braking once you get to Mars, could you (or would you want to) (...) (25 years ago, 17-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Transit Time to Mars
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| (...) Huh? Standard rockets carry all the fuel they need -- no air required. That's mostly what we've been using way up there, from the start. (...) But rockets aren't about efficient production of energy, they are about the efficient *storage* and (...) (25 years ago, 17-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Transit Time to Mars
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| (...) Yeah. But that's not the problem - 1G constant acceleration is utterly impossible with current tech. (...) Quite possibly. (...) And when the Shuttle solid-fuel-booster blows, you get what? I don't think any of us are going to forget that day (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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