Subject:
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Re: Hypothetical design question
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Mon, 23 Jun 2003 21:26:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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536 times
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In lugnet.space, Tom Bozzo wrote:
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In lugnet.space, Sylvia Tresto wrote:
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In lugnet.space, George Haberberger wrote:
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-snip-
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So, for a near light speed craft, anything hitting it would probably
destroy it, if it didn’t have some sort of shield. I can’t find the link,
but there is a page that describes very nicely what happens when an object
the size of a soup can hits a Star Destroyer at half the speed of light ( a
huge explosion).
Thanks,
George
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As for relativistic speeds, it may not be completely crazy to minimize
frontal area, though ‘drag reduction’ wouldn’t seem to be the biggest problem
(by the following back-of-the-envelope physics, anyhow)...
The density of normal matter in the interstellar vacuum is sufficiently low
by some estimates (something like 1 hydrogen atom per cubic meter of space?)
that drag wouldn’t seem to be much of an issue. Converting the mass of one
hydrogen atom into energy using E=mc^2, you get something like 1.5E-10 watt,
seemingly an upper bound on the energy transfer. This is so small that even
colliding with hundreds of millions per second per square meter of frontal
area wouldn’t lead to much of an energy dissipation issue.
Regards, Tom
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If I understand physics correctly, it doesn’t make a difference whether it is
the ship traveling at .9 c or the hydrogen atom. The energy released is the
same. Thus, that atom is effectively dealing far, far more energy than 1.5E-10
watts. Not to mention it will also have significant “drag” effects (not that it
matters if it vaporizes your ship first). Remember, E=mc^2 is only accurate for
matter at rest.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Hypothetical design question
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| (...) That's essentially correct. Two cars hitting each other head-on at 30MPH is effectively the same as one car hitting a stationary vehicle at 60MPH. Obviously the two accidents would not be perfect mirror images of each other, but the level of (...) (21 years ago, 23-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Hypothetical design question
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| (...) -snip- (...) Sylvi, This is an interesting reference. I can only guess at Reynolds' inspiration, though it does sound like an extrapolation of designs based on hypersonic flow theory (on that front, see (URL) -- note how the optimal shape (...) (21 years ago, 23-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)
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