Almost exactly a year ago, I posted a story called A Practical Positron Rocket, about Gerald Smith’s work at Positronics Research on a positron reactor. Antimatter is always a hot topic, given its potential for remarkably powerful engines and its implications for deep space work, but the post in question generated responses that ranged far beyond antimatter into numerous other potential solutions to the propulsion problem.
Which is fine, but we may be encountering a bug in WordPress which is keeping more recent comments from appearing properly. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I suspect that once comments for a given post reach a certain size limit, odd things begin to occur. In any case, I’ve had some anecdotal evidence (not just here) that this is the case.
This post, then, is for those of you who want to keep the ‘Practical Positron Rocket’ thread running. Please use the comments section here to do so, and we’ll retire the old post as a forum for comment.
paul,thank you very much you are as good as your word i appreciate your efforts. all the very best your friend george
Hi George;
Its good to be back on site.
A few concepts occurred to me regarding extreme energy storage and/or released from highly compressed materials.
1) The first concept involves crushing material until it somehow forms a stable state with the density of white dwarf material. If a small but macroscopic quantity of material could be compressed about 100 million fold to achieve some sort of stably locked compressed mode, then the destabilizing the material on command I think would yield enough energy for use in manned interstellar starflight. If the Pauli Exclusion Principle could somehow be suppressed and then reinstated for macroscopic white dwarf dense rocket fuel quantities, then we might have a whole new method with which to reach the stars. Perhaps somehow zero-point vacuum energy would come into play to enable easier compression of the normal density matter into white dwarf density wherein the reinstating of the Pauli Exclusion Principle as such might be away of explaining the huge energy release upon decompression.
2) The second concept involves crushing material further into neutron density wherein a macroscopic would be quantity of neutron dense matter would be formed by crushing the precursor normal density matter into a stably locked form of neutronium possibly with any usable form of Pauli Exclusion Principle surpression. As in the case of the white dwarf dense material, the neutronium dense matter would be decompressed for use as even more powerful rocket fuel wherein the neutron dense matter state would be unlocked possibly by somehow reinstating the Pauli Exclusion Principle. This procedure ought to definitely get us to the stars if possible.
3) The third concept involves compressing matter to the extent that the Pauli Exclusion Principle that would normally keep quarks within neutronium from getting to close to each other would effectively be at least partially suspended and the super dense state of quarkonium would be stably locked. Unlocking this super-dense state possibly by reinstating the Pauli Exclusion Principle in full might allow for stupendously powerful rocket fuel upon decompression.
Note that for white dwarfs and neutron stars, fermionic degeneracy plays an important role. As normal matter becomes compressed past white dwarf density towards neutron density in a neutron star, it is not the electric charge repulsion between the protons within the nuclei that matters, for the protons and electrons are effectively crushed together to a state that is indistinguishable form neutronium. It is the neutron degeneracy pressure that holds to neutron star from its final collapse into a black hole until the mass of the neutron star reaches about 3 solar masses.
4) The fourth concept involves a very hypothetical denser state yet that assumes that quarks may be composite wherein an even much greater density state can be achieved than that for quarkonium. Once again, producing a stably locked state possibly with the aid of Pauli Exclusion Principle surpression followed by decompression possibly through its reinstatement might yield even more powerful rocket fuel yet.
It has been stated by at least one physicist that it would take more energy than that contained within the entire visible universe to compress the Earth into a black-hole state if the Earth was squeezed by mechanical pressure as if by a hand. Note that the size of an Earth massed black-hole is about 1.2 centimeters in diameter. This density works out to be about 10 EXP 21 metric tons per cubic centimeter. Clearly, there is huge energy available in ultra-compressed matter. Such states as mentioned in items 1-4 above should not be discounted as rocket fuel for starships as we learn how to compress matter significantly beyond normal density.
Note that the pressure at the center of a neutron star can be roughly estimated to be the weight of a column of unit area extending from the neutron star surface radially to its center. The pressure thus approximated is (10 EXP 12 Gs)(10 EXP 6)(10 EXP 9) = 10 EXP 27 Metric Tons (Force equivalent) per square centimeter.
That’s all for now;
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi Paul;
Thanks for the renewed opportuinity to post. I posted the above previous comments on the old site earlier this afternoon not fully aware that the old site would be retired for posting so soon although I was aware of the general nature of the problem via George. I will make sure that all of my additional postings will now be done at this new site.
Thanks;
Jim Essig
yes jim it is good to be back in business at the new location! i just hope alot of other people will be moved to join us. interesting ideas by the way.the energy from the zero point field was something i was interested in seeing you mention – i had been talking alot about that over the last few years.it had occured to me that that would probably be a great source of energy to power a star ship.energy (fuel) the ship would not have to carry and which would be everywhere!also by the way…free!!! you know really it is very funny because when i first read about that subject…i thought this was”my idea” until later i found out that somebody had had it occur to them too circa 1947!!! so much for “my” concept.heck in 1947 i had not yet been born! still i am sure that this would be a good subject to study as a means of propulsion.and talking about that,it is very ironic,or at least i find it so – that this subject – a practical positron rocket – started as a discusion of antimatter as propusion and then branched out into so many other concepts that it filled its original space on the computer! wow really cool ! forgive me all but while i have your ear it would not be me if i did’nt put in a plug for warp drive and traversable wormholes too! two more of my personel favorite concepts.all the very best to one and all with (again) thanks to our administrator for his help in expanding this site!!! :) your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the critique and comments. As you stated, the zero point field, traversable wormholes, and spacewarps are potentially great resources for cosmic travel. Keep thinking about novel propulsion concepts, you never know when you are going to come up with an original and perhaps fantastic concept.
Regarding near term baby-steps, I was nosing around the internet last night and found multiple references for solid molecular nitrogen as a potential chemical rocket fuel. Supposedly, one version of the fuel might take the form of a N5+ cation joined to an N3- anion to form a N8 molecule. Such a fuel would be induced to breakdown into N2 molecules in a controlled manner to provide rocket thrust. The heating value of the solid room temperature nitrogen would be about three times that of Hydrazine. Given that the specific impulse is proportional to the square root of the heat of formation of a rocket fuel, this would put the solid nitrogen fuel Isp at about 470 seconds which is better than LOX/H2 fuel. Also, I am not sure, but I think the density of the solid nitrogen would be significantly greater than that of LOX and also that of liquid H2, thus making it efficient to carry as rocket fuel, i.e., able to be carried in a relatively small onboard storage vessel compared to traditional LOX/H2 fuel.
Another potential solid nitrogen fuel that I read about last night was a fullerine form of nitrogen, yet to be produced, that is basically a nitrogen version of a carbon buckyball. The N60 molecules would have 50 percent more energy storage than CL-20 which is supposedly the currently best performing chemical explosive. The idea would be to use N60 as a rocket fuel.
Supposedly, various forms of solid nitrogen at room temperature accordingly show potential as very useful monopropellent (or single component rocket fuel) thus making rocket engines and storage mechanisms for spacecraft powered by such more simple thus possibly permiting cheaper access to Earth orbit as well as lower cost means for manned mssions within the solar system.
Note that since N60 is tauted as potentially being an incremental yet revolutionary advance in chemical explosives for which the byproduct of decompostion is simply N2 molecules, it may offer a clean and effective tool for rock blasting on the Moon and Mars for the production of materials as a result of mining operations on both the Moon and Mars and also for the production of subsurface dwellings as a result of excavation.
For more information on solid room temperature nitrogen, one can see the Airforce Research Laboratory website.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim thank you for your theories and encouragement.it has always been my point of view that if we as a group kept the ideas comming that just maybe some day we would strike gold!!!especially with the group of fine minds who read here! i consider it an honor to be able to take part. your friend george
If a small but macroscopic quantity of material could be compressed about 100 million fold to achieve some sort of stably locked compressed mode, then the destabilizing the material on command I think would yield enough energy for use in manned interstellar starflight.
I’ve actually got an interesting engineering method for solving that problem. I’m still working on all the steps, but I can give you the first one.
Step 1: Find a mobile gravitational containment device equivalent to that of a white dwarf star, say a white dwarf star. Drag the white dwarf star using a neutron star…
I’m sort of stuck with the moving the neutron star problem now. Any ideas?
christine,i am sorry i do not have an idea to share with you on the above at this time but i do want to hear the rest of your idea. maybe if all else fails we could proceed on the basis of a “thought experiment” where we could just take certain things as given in order to unfold the concept for everybody to think about. i did that quite liberally once when i discussed how we might actually eventually build an interstellar “subway” system comprised of wormholes as in carl sagans book and movie contact.be happy to hear more from you as i know we all would like too hear your idea.well thank you and i’ll keep an eye open.your friend george
Hi Christine and George:
Christine, your engineering method sounds fascinating. Keep up the good work!
I am not quite sure how one would move the neutron star but perhaps using a huge rocket stationed a short distance away from the neutron star wherein the rocket thrust would be directed so that it does not contact the star surface directly nor be trapped by the nuetron star’s gravity could be of help. Perhaps exaust velocites close to the speed of light would enable the exaust to avoid being pulled in by the stars strong gravity. The rocket might be supplied with energy and/or massive particle fuel from a remote location so that the rocket could do its work while having a smaller gross mass than it would if it carried all of its fuel aboard.
Perhaps another method is simply to repeatedly strike the neutron star with asteriods, planetary sized bodies or other similar objects at relativistic original velocities. Some sort of attached fusion rocket system might do the trick wherein the rocket system would be of a parasitic form that gradually utilizes fusionable material from the planetary bodies composition. Care would have to be taken such that the mass of the neutron star would not be increased by the infalling debris to the extent that it collapses into a blackhole.
Another idea might be to somehow induce some exotic yet to be discovered exothermic reaction wherein a beam or slugs of certain types of energy or matter are used to strike the surface of the neutron star in such a manner the a localized portion of the neutron star undergoes some sort of constituent particle decay with enough heat release and otherwise energetic intensity such that the products of the resulting massive explosions have more than enough velociity to escape the gravity well of the neutron star. I am not sure what the reactions would be let alone the right form of incident matter and/or energy required for such. Perhaps the use of some exotic form of matter such as a form of matter composed atleast in part of strange quarks, or strange matter, might somehow produce enough energy concentration to be effective. One would need to be careful that the explosion does not self propagate throughout the neutron star thus destroying the star and every thing in its vacinity. Such a violent explosion could be far more powerful than a typical supernova explosion thus holding populations on star systems within a radius of up to hundreds of lightyears from the exploding neutron star at risk of radiation poisoning and/or ionizing radiation induced atmospheric chemistry damage that could adversely effect their home planets ecosystems.
Another possible neutron star surface explosion inducing mechanism as such might somehow entail the use of particle species predicted to exist in some of the sypersymmetric particle and field theories. By these, I mean particles such as squarks, sleptons, sneutrinos, photinos, gluinos, gravatinos etc.
I have no idea which if any form of exotic matter currently contemplated to exist in the field of theoretical physics but not yet discovered would be of help in creating such localized surface explosions.
Alternatively, large beams and/or slugs of normal baryonic antimatter could be of help in a simmilar manner. I could see that highly relativistic extremely powerful beams of antimatter in the form of antimatter nuclei containing antineutrons or solid anti-neutronium slugs could be of use for producing momentum imparting reactions on the surface of the neutron star.
George, I am also very intrigued about the interstellar subway system concepts. It would be neat to be living in an era where one could enter an Earth based station, hop on the subway, and hear the words “doors closing”, “next station, Proxima Centauri System”. Keep thinking and tinkering with the wormholes concepts.
I will summarize some more information on chemical rocket fuel research wherein the Isp values of the proposed fuels are in the range of 500 to 1,000 later this weekend. Although far removed from the Isp values for manned interstellar rocket fuels such as nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and matter-antimatter fuels, these incremental steps in high energy density materials or HEDMs might help us to have much lower cost of access to Earth orbit where we can build spaceships to eventually tool around the Galaxy.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim and christine : i read all of the above and lol i still have no idea how to “move” a star! as to the worm hole subway…no real idea how to do it as of now but i will say that it would mean being able to warp spacetime so as to be able to create the “tunnels”! we would need very much to learn huge amounts before we could probably even begin such a project.at the very least i hope that i am in some small way influencing others to give the problem some thought.don’t forget how advanced the aliens in contact where depicted as being!! maybe you’d need a “field projector” that had as much power as a black hole and that could be “easily”assembled and transported! hey christine…maybe the seed of an idea for your star moving plan is somewhere in there!? respectfully to all your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the above response and critique.
I would like to summarize a few high Isp and exaust velocity rocket fuel concepts as follows which may be of relavance for taking the first manned babysteps out into our solar system and into the Oort cloud. Although neither of the fuels below appoach the maximum exaust velocity and thus the maximum Isp potential of nuclear fission rockets, nuclear fusion rockets, or matter/antimatter rockets, the fuels mentioned below might be useful as an intermeadiate step between currently used chemical rocket fuels and nuclear fission, fusion, and matter/antimatter fuels.
1) Using liquid oxygen and flourine yields a maximum exaust velocity of about 4700 meter/sec which compares with the exaust velociity of 4500 meters/sec for the hydrogen and oxygen burning space-shuttle main engines.
2) Burning liquid hydrogen with ozone would yield a maximum exaust velociity of about 4700 meter/sec.
3) Using monatomic hydrogen would yield a maximum theoretical exaust velocity of 6550 meter/sec upon recombination of the seperated atoms into H2 (diatomic hydrogen molecule). However, keeping the hydrogen atoms apart until they are used to provide thrust is a problem that has not yet been solved.
4) Metallic hydrogen might provide an exaust velocity of 17,700 meter/sec, however, it has not yet been produced in a stable depressurized form.
5) Dodecahedral nitrogen, (N20) could theoretically have an exaust velocity of over 4900 meter/sec but has not to the best of my knowledge ever been produced.
6) Spin-stabilized triplet helium may have an exaust velocity approaching 31,000 meter/sec. This would provide excellent fuel for tooling around the solar system: even allowing manned missions into the Oort cloud and back. However, this fuel to the best of my knowledge has never been produced in macroscopic quantities, and certainly not in large enough quantities for use in even the smallest rockets and/or least powerful engines ever built.
Note that the concepts in items 2) through 6) above would require production of large quantities of fuel to be meaningful for deep Solar System and Oort Cloud manned space-flight, and as such, proposes a big challange, but probably not insurmountable one, to researchers and engineers within the field of High Energy Density Materials or HEDMs.
With the need and the desire to get mankind beyond Earth and Lunar orbit in the near term, I am sure a lot more research is going to occur in the development of such HEDMs and other HEDMs.
I hope to be back on site tomorrow or Thursday at the latest even though I have a lot of other matters to attend to today and tomorrow.
I plan to summarize more HEDM prospects then.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim,well ok !! maybe these fuels are not matter/antimatter,but at this point i welcome anything that could get us out into the solar sysytem taking our first steps toward the kuiper belt oort cloud,stars!! i will try to follow in a minute with something else right below this comment.thank you your friend george
hello everybody i just wanted to post some problems as i see them : lol first of all jim posts above in an almost apologetic way about fuels that are lol not exactly matter/antimatter.well,as i said at this point anything that gets us out into the solar system is V ery welcome! but…the problem with the space program as i see it – first of all it was always just too much headline grabbing politics to beat the ussr in a “race”! from mercury and gemini pretty much on to apollo it was always one spacecraft for one mission launched by one disposable rocket and always at an expensive price! the shuttles where supposed to correct that but never did.and we abandoned the moon! well now we want to go back…so what do we try to do? we fall back on what always “worked so well before” we go for apollo again! i’m wondering if this will ever actually be built post bush and post griffen? with the money involved and the lack of real public interest i kind of doubt it. we need a much better plan.imho this should be building a new fleet of shuttles for the purposes of constructing space ships in orbit that could then go to the moon mars and beyond.said ships would be more cost efficient because they would remain in commission for long periods of time during which they could do several missions.as i see it they should carry modules of some kind for landings on thebodies they visit,planets asteroids etc. at the very least they could do close flybys of places like jupiter or saturn where there is no surface upon which to land.if we start right now this plan will still take a long time before it really can begin yes but it would be less wastefull and accomplish more in the long run.it is just that our current plans do not seem to have any great support with congress or the public,are too exprnsive and show way too little imagination…maybe part of the reason they don’t have alot of support!? well those are my comments for now and i’d like to know what everone thinks.be happy to hear from any or all! respectfully your friend george ps would’nt it be great if a ship we could build “soon” could be the first ship to land crewmembers on an asteroid in the kuiper belt/oort cloud!? better leave off there before this posting becomes alot longer and shows danger signs of boring people…all the best g
Hi George;
Thanks for the critical review of my latest postings. I appreciate and value your feedback and that of any other readers who wish to comment
George, I think you are absolutely right about the non matter/antimatter fuels comments. A fuel with an exhaust velocity of 31,000 meter/sec such as metastable helium could concievably get mankind to the nearest stars if we were willing to design the ships to be very large and allow transit velocities of approximately 0.005 C to 0.02 C thus taking a few centuries to reach any star within 4 to 7 or 8 light years. Such a ship could be like a huge multi generation space ark. While the space arks as such would be enroute, work on advanced nuclear propulsion, matter/antimatter rockets, and God willing, warp drives and traversable wormholes such as advocated by you George.
I think much research needs to be done on HEDMs simmillar to the ones I outlined in my previous posting concurrently with research on potentiallly far faster nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and matter/antimatter drives as well as continued theoretical work on warp drives and wormholes. Such intermediary HEDMs offer us potentially an excellent opportuinity to reach out and tool around the Solar System, Kuiper Belt, and Oort Cloud.
Thanks;
Look forward to hearing from you soon;
Jim
jim,while i have always respected the idea of a space ark i have to be honest and admit that i never really liked the idea alot.i mean my friend its almost funny really…a major project is undrtaken in order to build a huge ark to travel to the stars at none too fast a velocity and then in one or two hundred years the ark gets passed by a starship like the enterprise! or really paaaaaaaaassed by a ship inside a traversable wormhole.kind of makes me wonder why we should worry about it in the first place.ever see the star trek episode from the original series with kirk – for the earth is hollow and i have touched the sky!?those people had been in their ark so long they had forgotten that it was an ark! one of the drawbacks of such a project i am sure.i think we should and in fact will do as follows: back to the moon the best way we can.even if it will wind up as being “apollo on steroids”! mars on fission or fusion then beyond maybe all the way to the oort cloud by finally having harnessed antimatter. “soon” after that an early star ship of some kind hopefully with a means of propulsion that right now we hav’nt thought of.i must be in a good mood or something because i’ll even throw in a guess as to the timeline above! and please don’t forget these are guesses…the moon by say the mid 2020’s mars by 2045 or so first starship by about 2150. probably i’m very wrong and progress will not be so slow especially as we get behind space flight as a serious concern. a good buddy of mine said on line recently and i believe him “the future is never as far away as you think!”anyhow once again i am privilaged to have said my piece and will gladly await everyone else’s comments. thank you everybody, your friend george
hello everybody ,a very funny thing in the posting above i “predicted” we would get to mars by say 2045. just read an article aol posted today dealing with death and sex on long space missions.they say that nasa predicts about 30 years from now for mars. so…2037.a full 8 years before my guess!! i would in no way doubt it.anyhow it is real good to know that they are seriously thinking about these things which mean so much to us here! hope i see more on the return to the moon and mars really soon.thank you one and all your friend george …ideas? comments?
Hi George;
Thanks for the critical review.
I to am very encouraged about NASA’s plan to go back to the moon and then on to Mars by 2037. I read the aol news item on NASAs study of crew member death and matters of sexuality on multi-year space missions. These are very very important matters to address and perhaps as the article suggested, the discovery of the Earth like planet 22 light years away will spur NASA more to contemplate manned interstellar missions and the associated issues with the psychology and other human factors issues related to crew compatability.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Jim
spur them to consider interstellar missions!? well i hope!! hard to believe all that has gone wrong…all the shuttle delays and tragedies! a cev that may or may not be built post bush and griffen (not that it was exactly the best thing since sliced bread either!)and and and roflol a plan to land on mars thank you very much in “only” 30 friggin years!!!???sometimes i fear that we will end up with NO humans in space.but lol at least that will solve the problem of sex in space! anybody with some positive thoughts ,please chime in! thank you very much your friend george
When a new Administration is in place in 2009, be it Democrat
or Repulbican, what are the odds that Bush’s VSE will survive
the year after that?
Hi George and ljk;
Thanks for the critical review and comments. I too am very concerned about the possbile fate of our manned space program. I concerned that all of the money going to fight the war in Iraq and potential real national security needs will turn the government. the military, and perhaps even commercial enterprize against manned space-flight. However, I plan to perservere to advocate for such in spite of the potential reduction of funds to support such flight either within the government or private enterprize. To that end, I have a few other interstellar spaceflight concepts to mention as follows.
1) The first idea involves the concept of gravity assist using an object with the mass and density of a white dwarf but which is composed of weakly interacting massive particles or of some other type of cold dark matter or CDM. The idea would be to find such an object or produce one by somehow collecting CDM and/or somehow efficiently producing the CDM (very long term prospect) by converting normal matter and/or energy into CDM.
The body would work by allowing the craft to pass very close to the outer surface of the large CDM object without the risk of radiation induced damage or destruction of the craft by instabilities in the CDM object which are analogous to star quakes on white dwarfs which can result and very large explosions and release copious amounts of ionizing electromagnetic energy. In fact, a normal matter spacecraft could in theory pass right through the center of the CDM object and experience only the effects of gravitational induced tidal forces which could become a problem for large spacecraft wherein the differential gravitational pull on the spacecraft could tear the craft apart. Perhaps some novel gravitational effect could be produced by enabling a space-craft to pass right through the CDM body and exit the body on the other side of the body. If controllable antigravity can ever be utilized, then the craft could approach the CDM body with an activated enhanced normal gravity production device as it approaches the body and upon passing by or passing through the center of the CDM body, the sign of the gravity would be reversed to that of very strong anti-gravity wherein the craft would get an enormous boost in velocity very quickly through antigravity repulsion.
2) The second idea involves a similar type of system except that the mass of the CDM Body, although being roughly the same as that of neutron star and thus a little heavier than that of a white dwarf, would be much more concentrated to the point of being as dense as a neutron star. One again, the craft could skim the surface of the neutron-like dense CDM body or pass through it, with or without the above stated enhanced normal gravity and/or antigravity mechanisms.
3) The third idea involves finding some very exotic form of CDM or very efficiently producing it such that the CDM species would allow very large masses, perhaps as great as a galaxy mass, to be aggregated in such a manner that the object would not collapse under its own weight to become a black-hole thus allowing very long and very intense acceleration pathways wherein the CDM body would act as a tremendous gravity assist mechanism even in the absence of the ability to produce an enhanced normal gravity and/or anti-gravity field; or in the case where it becomes possible to produce very intense artificial normal gravity fields and/or antigravity fields, even greater accelerations thus enabling the craft to approach C- e, where e is very small and in the extreme lower limit, e becomes vanishingly small and perhaps equal to zero.
4) The fourth idea involves setting up a series of such CDM bodies as described under sections 1) -3) above, wherein the craft would pass by and/or pass through one such body after another gaining a large if not hugely relativistic increase in kinetic energy with each pass by.
5) The fifth idea is an old one contemplated probably before I was born but involves producing a huge rotating toriodal ring wherein the mass of the ring might be anywhere from 1 million solar masses to 10 trillion or more solar masses wherein a craft would pass though the center of the ring along the ring’s axis of rotation. The craft would get a huge gravity assist by racing toward the center of the ring and through it and away from the ring under full throttle. Alternatively, the space craft could approach the ring with onboard artificially greatly enhanced normal gravity until it reaches the center of the ring and passes through the center wherein an optional onboard very intense antigravity field generator would be activated to allow huge repulsive accelerations away from the toriod.
The ring could conceivably be made of normal baryonic matter with the density of neutronium or at least to that of white dwarf material and occupy a relatively small volume of space such that it is close to forming a black-hole by its own mass. Note that a 10 trillion solar mass black-hole would have a radius of approximately 1.5 light years so that a stable 10 trillion solar mass rotating toriod might (in the far distant future) be artificially produced from matter collected within a galaxy super-cluster, if not, then from galaxy-cluster wherein the ring would have a radius of about 4 or 5 light years.
Alternatively, a series of such rings could be set up with equal or lesser mass than the proposed mass range mentioned just previously wherein the craft would repeatedly receive huge gravitational assists optionally augmented by onboard intense normal gravity and/or antigravity field generators that are activated in a manner as described above.
For additional safety, the above hypothetical toriodal rings could be made of CDM in order to reduce the likelihood of damage or destruction of the craft in case the craft “runs into” the ring, or which in this case, would simply pass through the ring.
Regardless of the method used e.g., any one of the methods described under item 1) -5) above, great care would have to be taken such that tidal forces of these extremely massive CDM and/or normal body masses would not tear the spacecraft to pieces by tidally stretching and compressing it in a manner similar to what a black-hole could do. Although the above CDM or normal matter very massive bodies would not have gravity fields as intense as a black-hole of the same mass, the strength of the CDM or normal matter bodies’ gravity fields could still be very dangerous and, in certain circumstances, could still annihilate an approaching space craft.
I do not know how a civilization would collect enough matter and/or CDM to produce any of the very large bodies as described above but perhaps hundreds to thousands and even millions of years of particle physics experiments and theory development might provide a mechanism for converting normal baryonic and/or leptonic matter into CDM. Perhaps the further development of super symmetric particles and fields theories and the augmentation or validation of such theories through experimental discoveries either through the observation of ultra high energy cosmic ray interactions and/or through experiments conducted at particle accelerators could shed some light on how such matter to CDM conversion could take place.
Alternatively perhaps the massive amounts of material required to produce such massive bodies could be acquired from the zero point energy fields and/or from other dimensions.
The requisite matter in the worst case scenario might simply be collected over hundreds of millions if not billions of years via space matter collectors that travel about interstellar and/or intergalactic space collecting matter and/or CDM and depositing it at a single location for gradual construction of the very massive transportation infrastructure(s) as such. One such infrastructure was built, it could be maintained and serviced perhaps for trillions of years into the future in a very different but analogous way that our current U.S. highway transportation infrastructure was built in a reasonably short time but which could be maintained for a much longer period of time than it took to built it.
For large spherically symmetric objects with masses much greater than that of the mass range of normal stars, very peculiar forms of CDM would have to be found and/or produced such that the CDM body would not collapse under its own weight and internal pressure as certain neutron stars can if they accredit to much matter from the surrounding environment or as the cores of certain supernova do according to certain theoretical models of the detonation of very massive stars during supernova forming processes. Some sort of exotic CDM particle with a Vander walls electric charge like repulsive mechanism between the particles or a phenomenon like neutron degeneracy pressure which prevents neutron stars from collapsing into black-holes (unless they accredit enough extra mass) wherein an effect similar to the Pauli Exclusion Principle which acts upon fermions such as atomic nucleons, quarks, electrons, muons, and tau particles and the like except that the resulting repulsive force would be much stronger than the effects resulting from the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
6) The sixth a last concept that I will summarize today is yet another old concept and involves the remote possibility that there may yet be very large sources of antimatter available in remote regions of the universe, perhaps even within the currently observable universe. I commented on this possibility in a previous posting wherein I mentioned that certain quasars in the form of super massive black-holes with surrounding accretion disks might be spewing forth quantities of antimatter wherein the quantities of such antimatter that exist within cosmic jets hundreds of thousands of light years long may be equal to many solar masses of antimatter produced by particle interaction occurring within the super hot plasma that originates within the accretion disks surrounding the black-holes. However, it has been suggested that the possibility that there may be antimatter stars and perhaps even antimatter galaxies, even within the currently observable universe, cannot be completely ruled out yet. It would be a great find if we were able to locate such antimatter resources and utilize them for manned interstellar and/or intergalactic transport and/or for other industrial purposes
George, no doubt that wormholes and warp drives would be a much better solution, and if such can be developed within the next centuries or millennia, then the ideas I outlined above in items 1) – 5) become completely irrelevant. I would like to see items 1) – 5) as outlined above become irrelevant for just that reason. If traversable wormholes and warp drives can ever be developed, it would be interesting to hear an Earth based teenager ask to his mother, “Mom, after I finish fixing the hyper-drive motivator on your Millennium Falcon so you can visit your sister over in Andromeda, can I go out for a walk to Mars?”
Anyhow that’s all for now;
I will be back on site tomorrow at the latest with some more plausible down to Earth concepts including the further commentary of high energy density materials HEDMs that I promised earlier in the week.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
ljk, after bush leaves office his ideas for space will probably be forgotten in less than 10 seconds! and jim : very fine ideas it is great that we can think and talk about these things however not alot of people outside this group are going to pay alot of attention,congress somewhat less. probably alot of our fine ideas here will be done but not before a long long time has passed!! thank you your friend george
Hi George and ljk;
I am beginning to think that perhaps for the next 10 or 20 years, it might be wise to develop the heck out of relaunchable orbit capable vehicles, perhaps focusing on fuels like hyper-refined kerosine, LOX, Liquid H2, and liquid methane inorder to use true and tried but further refined combustion technologies as such. Note that the effective Isp potential for kerosine used in a scram jet could be as high as 3200 which is much higher than LOX/H2 fuel at about 400.
A system for quickly getting to and from Earth orbit would allow us to design and build large interplanetary ships to tool around the Solar System, and upon a rigorous program to develop fusion rockets, a means for reaching the stars within 10 light years of Earth with fusion powered rocket terminal velocities of 1/3 C thus putting dozens of stars within reach in one human generation ship time. The engineering efforts would need to be heroic, but I think that fusion reactions could be chosen so that a large plasma with a particle velocity of about .15 C could be obtained for at least some of the bi-products of certain fusion reactions. The plasma would just shoot out the back of an electric field shielded rocket cone like mechanism. The reactor would in effect be an open ended fusion reactor which operates on simmilar principles that many types of fusion test reactors for research purposes operate on Earth. The fusion fuel could simply be zapped by a laser system, charged particle beams, or simply induced to undergo fusion by perturbing it by locally super heating small portions of fusion fuel pellets with matter/antimatter reactions. I can imagine that the total amount of antimatter needed might be very small, perhaps only a few grams for an effective onboard supply to induce the fusion fuel pellets to undergo nuclear reactions. I think the U.S. Airforce realizes this and that is why they are roumored to be getting into the business of antimatter production and storage. How soon can we get to the stars, as you say George “the future is never as far away as you think!”.
To begin this journey, I encourage any reader of this posting to think about ways of modifying Kerosine/LOX , H2/LOX, Liquid Methane/LOX technologies all ready in use, both in unclassified programs as well as those who work on novel aspects of such in any classified research and development programs to persevere all the more to get us easy, dependable, quick turn around time, safe, and low cost access to Earth orbit. Then the more ambitious goals of our Centuari Dreams can begin to be realized.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George and ljk;
I am back with a summary of more high energy density materials HEDMs as well as further comments on some I previously summarized.
1) A form of ozone called cyclic ozone is theoretically a more poweful oxidizer than conventional ozone which is a more powerful oxidizer than regular oxygen. The molecular configuration of cyclic ozone is that of an equalateral triangle.
2) A form of molecular oxygen called tetra-oxygen is potentially more potent then the various forms of ozone.
Note that the Isp for the above materials in theory ranges from 500 seconds to 630 seconds. If the above forms of ozone and O4 could be manufactured in bulk and stably and safely stored, the O3/H2, O4/H2, O3/kerosine, and O4/kerosine rocket propulsion could become the main stays for lofting payloads into Earth orbit in order to build manned planetary space-craft, and God willling, manned starships.
3) Metallic hydrogen releases 138 MegaJoules per kilogram when it decomposes into gasious hydrogen. This is roughly 33 times the mass specific energy of the decomposition or explosion of 1 kilogram of TNT which yields about 4.182 MegaJoules. This is a very long way from nuclear fission at about 22 kilotons of TNT per kilogram (or about 100 Terajoules or 100 million MegaJoules per kilogram) of U-235, Pu-239 etc., and an even longer way from nuclear fusion as about 100 to 250 kilotons per kilogram depending on the fusing elements, and even yet much further removed from 1 kilogram of matter which when combined with one kilogram of antimatter would yield about 44 megatons which is close in yield to the most powerful hydrogen bomb known to have been tested at about 59 megatons by the U.S.S.R. in the early 1960s.
However metallic hydrogen, if it can be produced is predicted to be about 10 times denser than liquid hydrogen and offer an Isp of about 670 seconds. Thus it might make excellent chemical fuel for tooling around the inner solar system for manned spacecraft and perhaps for such even out towards the outer reaches of the solar system.
4) Free radicals of gases H-, O-, N-, F- and the metals Li, B, and Be removed from their metal lattices offer other potentially great rocket fuels. Althought production and storage are difficult, if such difficulties can be overcome, then we can have atomic fuels with Isp in the range of 670 to 2,000 seconds which would definately allow manned missions out to as far as Pluto in a few years travel time without gravity assists from either Jupiter or Saturn.
5) Helium atoms which are highly energized but upon returning to their lower electonic shell energy state, release about 480 MegaJoules per kilogram resulting in an potential Isp of approximately 2800 seconds for rockets. If large quantities of this fuel could be produced and safely and stably stored, it would be an excellent candidate for interplanetary manned travel.
However, this fuel in a rocket would still have an Isp less than the effective Isp value for kerosine at about 3200 seconds for jet engines becuase the jet fuel’s oxidizer is not carried along with the plane, but rather is extracted from the atmosphere.
Note that the above values for the potential energy and Isp for the rocket fuels outlined above were no way derived from any personal knowledge of mine. These values were taken from a report put out by Jeff Craddock of The Boeing Company. The title of the report was Advanced Propulsion For Low Earth Orbit and Beyond for the International Space Development Conference held at Los Angeles, CA on 4 May, 2006. Nonetheless, I felt abliged to add some additional comments so that the reader of the posting could more greatly appreciate the potentially great ramifications of the development of these potential rocket fuels without having to actually go to the website for which the specific numerical values were obtained but which was cluttered by a lot of other information. Thus I felt that the brief overview and commentary I presented here would be helpful to any casual readers of this website.
Anyhow, my brain is worn out for the night and so I will call it a night. I plan to be back onsite late this evening with some more interesting tidbits regarding HEDMs.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim yes you could not be more correct i myself have been preaching about ships built in orbit to explore the solar system which would lead to the stars and the absolute neccessity of developing things like fusion and anti matter propulsion etc etc. !! hope people start listening soon! i am sure most people here would agree. thank you your friend george
Hi George;
Its good to be back onsite.
Rumours abound that the U.S. Department of Defense may be actively engaged in research on socalled nuclear isomers which are species of atomic nuclei that have long excited energy state half-lives. One nuclear isomer that shows up often in Google searches is the hafnium-178m2 excited state. Accordingly, such a material might have the ability to store over 50,000 times the energy per unit mass than TNT can store per same unti mass. Thus, a one metric ton sample of this material would store the equivalent of 50,000 metric tons of TNT in energy, or about the same energy released in the explosion of 4 atomic bombs, each with the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Although not nearly as energy dense as weapons grade uranium or plutonium as 20,000 tons of TNT yield per kilogram and even less than the approximately 100,000 tons of TNT yield per kilogram of typical low atomic number isotope nuclear fusion fuel, nuclear isomers, if they can be produced in sizable quantities might make excellent fuel for tooling around the Solar System, Kuiper Belt, and Oort cloud. Other nuclear isomers that have been considered for energy storage include Os187, Yt186, Ta180, and Zn66. The half-life of excited hafnium-178m2 is 31 years thus perhaps allowing it to be a reasonable long life fuel for manned missions deep into the Oort Cloud.
This research is interesting because of the potential uses for manned space travel as described above. Also, as we learn more about the known nuclear isomers, perhaps we can discover and manufacture other isomeric nuclear materials with some if not significantly more mass specific energy storage than the hafnium-178m2 excited state.
Even though rumours abound with the potential use of the hafnium-178m2 excited state as a pure gamma ray weapon which unfortunately could have the lethality of hydrogen bombs if used in enough qauntity in an isomeric bomb, I would hope that the material would greatly preferentially be used in a gradual controlled energy release mode in manned spacecraft in the more peaceful persuit of manned Oort cloud exploration.
It is interesting to note that every few decades, new groups of materials seem to be developed or theorized about such that new applications for transportation can be realized or that seem to becoming “just around the corner”. Good examples of such are the coal era when steam driven trains and paddle wheel boats were the self powered vehicular transportation main stay of the second half of the 19th Century followed by gasoline, diesel, and kerosine for autombiles, aircraft, and ocean going vessels during the first half of the 20th Century, to nuclear fission power for ocean going vessels and liquid and solid chemical rocket fuels for manned and unmanned rockets during the second half of the 20th Century, and now near the begiining of the 21st century, we are talking about antimatter/matter powered rockets, fusion rockets in more detail, and nuclear isomers as rocket fuel. I hope we can develop the latter for good purposes. I wonder what the second half of the 21st Century will bring.
I will try to find time to post more on energetic materials in the comming few days. Note that I am buzy with other matters and so it might take some time for me to formulate or summarize some more ideas for posting.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
very exciting news great new propulsion ideas are always welcome! thank you jim. also i have heard that the us navy is currently thinking about developing the concept of the bussard ramjet!!! glad if i could hear any info from anyone here that might have more to say on that very exciting subject as well!! thank you very very much,respectfully your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments. I will look forward to hearing more about the U.S. Navy Bussard Ramjet: It sounds fascinating!
Did you happen to read the aol.com news article posted yesterday about the unusually powerful supernova that is statistically a real outlier in terms of total energy output and luminosity? I wonder if there is some new physics at work here that could ultimately be applied to energy generation for interstellar manned spacecraft. Even some novel nuclear reaction or sub-nuclear particle reaction pathways involving known particle species would be interesting especially if such reactions were more exothermic than that of known nuclear fission and nuclear fusion reactions and which also could be duplicated on a small scale as would be required for any reasonably sized interstellar spacecraft any time reasonably soon (perhaps even within this century).
Any form of safely carryable rocket fuel that is universally available wherein using the fuel for reactions that would convert say 4 or 5 percent of the fuel mass into energy compared to the typically approximately 0.7 percent effeciency for known low atomic number fusion fuels would go a long way to making interstellar flight to our stellar nieghbors practical wherein the ship reference time frame could be significantly dialated and the Earth time reference frame for manned travel to stars within a 10 to 30 light year radius of Earth could become easily acceptable to government agencies such as NASA as well as the tax-payer. Such would open up hundreds of star systems for manned exploration. If such energy conversion effeciency could be accomplished without the need to carry premanufactured antimatter on board the ship, potentially a lot of safety issues would be solved. Obviously, as we developed better and safer ways to store antimatter, extremely relativistic matter/antimatter manned spacecraft could be used to travel galactic scale distances within our galaxy providing the reaction energy to ship kinetic energy conversion efficiency would be about 70 percent or higher: 90% to 95+% would be outstanding.
Hi ljk;
I read your posting regarding methane fuel/LOX powered rockets. This is indeed a great development which could open up our solar system for manned space flight. As you mentioned, the vast quantities of hydrocarbon materials and precursor materials available within our Solar System make practical methane/LOX rockets potentially extremely viable for interplanetary manned travel during the first half of the 21st Century.
George and ljk, I will try to find time to summarize more info on HEDMs in the comming days as I have promised earlier. I have been very busy lately and so have not had too much time to summarize info from various sources on HEDMs.
I am a bit sleepy and so I will stop here for tonight so I can catch some ZZZZZ’s.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
I have a few more ideas on isomers to summarize.
1) The first idea involves the notion of somehow producing exotic stable particles out of the quarks not contained within nucleons. The thought was that perhaps stable composite particles might be producible from charmed, strange, top, or bottom quarks or combinations thereof which could be energized and held in an excited state wherein the excited state of bulk macroscopic quantities of such material would have a half life of many years thus permitting use of the excited fuel for manned interstellar travel.
It has been suggested that lumps of strange matter, or matter comprising strange quarks, might exist within interstellar and intergalactic space. If such matter does exist and proves to be stable, then perhaps it can be harvested from space, somewhere, and/or produced artificially. Perhaps any form of quarkonium could be used as a highly energized isomer, perhaps, with mass specific energy storage density exceeding known nuclear isomers and perhaps even that of nuclear fission and even nuclear fusion fuels. Energy storage density might even approach that of matter/antimatter if the quarkonium can be sufficiently charged or energized without disintegrating to quickly.
2) The second idea involves the notion of somehow inducing excited states in protons and/or antiprotons to isomeric-like states wherein the excited states would somehow store more energy than is available from nuclear fusion reactions, especially those involving protons. I do not know if such states can be induced and maintained over large time periods without causing the decay or transmutation of the proton. Perhaps it is possible to store such large quantities of energy but that we have overlooked some aspect of proton dynamics in an analogous way that at one point stable positronium was thought not to be possible, and yet it is now being discussed in theoretical astronautics as a possible source of energy for future matter/antimatter rockets.
3a) A form of exotic matter that might produce a net energy flow from other dimensions by somehow acting as a conduit for energy flow from other dimensions to our 4 known Einsteinian space-time dimensions would be ideal especially if the energy deliverable was orders of magnitude greater than either the rest mass and/or perhaps the relativistic kinetic energy of the particles acting as a conduit. Perhaps the particles could become repeatedly excited, seemingly out of nowhere, and then emit electromagnetic energy or other forms of energy, be such energy in the form of fermions or bosons, which would be used to power a spacecraft such as an ion rocket, electron rocker, photon rocket, hopefully one day a tachyon rocket, an EPHDD, an MPHDD, and EMPHDD system, a beamed bosonic or fermionic kinetic energy driven sail ship, an antigravity propulsion system, an electrogravatic propulsion system, warp drive system and any other proposed but still theoretical propulsion system.
3b) Another alternative is that perhaps the excess energy as such can be drawn from the various zero point energy vacuum fields, perhaps in great quantity if the energy state of the vacuum can be locally depolarized somehow to yield tremendous energy output from a small piece of matter acting as an energy conduit. I don’t know any details of how this might work but its worth at least considering.
3c) One alternative to this as of yet highly fanciful technology would be to use the exotic matter or bosonic particles to draw energy in from parallel histories of the kind proposed by the commonly named “many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics”. There would seem to be an unlimited supply of energy available through such applications because when one history was depleted of energy, another history could be utilized. In theory, additional histories could be created at will just by causing a quantum mechanical event in the form of a collapse of a wave-function of a certain quantum state wherein the location of a particle, its momentum, or its energy could be highly localized even though obviously according to the uncertainty principle; (delta x)(delta Px) is greater than or equal to h/4 or (delta E)(delta t) is greater than or equal to h/4, where h = Planck’s constant. It so happens that the collapsing of wave functions is occurring ubiquitously all around us in the form of photonic interaction of visible light or infrared light with materials within our environment, the interaction of phonons, plasmons, magnons, with atoms or crystalline structures in materials, random decays of background radio-active nuclei, etc.. If the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanic is correct, then we may have an unending series of histories with which to harvest energy and other resources. The big question is what the existence of any such histories means, and if they exist, can we access them to harvest resources in bulk macroscopic quantities.
4) Another concept involves the notion that quarks might turn out to be composite. If they are composite, then perhaps they can serve as quark isomers wherein any such sub-quark particles composition could be excited with long half lives wherein potentially huge amounts of energy could be stored within a macroscopic quantity of quarks wherein the energy would be contained as excited states within the constituents of the quarks. Perhaps macroscopic pieces of quarkonium, be it strange matter quarkonium or any other existing or possible type quarkonium would be an ideal storage medium for energy in the form of quarks with excited sub compositions. Note that it is generally assumed from the standard model of particles and fields that quarks are simple; i.e., have no further subdivisions or composition. However, some theoretical movements beyond the Standard Model have suggested that quarks may yet turn out to have a sub-composition.
Perhaps if there are sub-compositions of a particulate nature to quarks, the energy available for use in technological applications may remain shielded and may be very hard to access. Note that in many versions of quantum-chromo-dynamics, the separations of quarks into free independently moving quarks is not possible because accordingly, if the quarks were pulled away from each other with enough force, eventually new quarks with binding potential would be produced out of the strained nuclear force field lines. In other words, the binding energy stored in the strained force fields that hold quarks together would be transformed into additional quarks.
Now perhaps it is true that the energy stored in any sub-composition of quarks might exceed, perhaps by far, the apparent mass/energy of the so-composed quarks and thus the nucleons and other hadrons that are formed from quarks. Might this latent energy at any given “time interval t”, if time as we know it can be defined at any such sub quark level, for any constituents of quarks, be greater than the total mass/energy of the so-composed quarks including rest mass and kinetic energy during the same time interval. Since quarks appear shielded from the state of being free-ranging, which is qualitatively different than the status of nucleons or other hadrons that are composed of quarks, then perhaps we can go one further qualitative step to speculate that energy in the form of excited states of any existent quark sub constituents might be equal to E > M[C^2] /{[1-(V/C)^2]]^(1/2)}. If quarks are found to be composite, will their sub-components also be found to be composite. If so, how far down the chain can we go. Can the dynamics of any quark sub-compositions be harnessed for manned interstellar space travel? Only time will tell.
5) It has been speculated that electrons might have a sub-composition. If so, then perhaps an analogous energy source to that described above might be based on un-shielding electronic subcomponents’ energy equal to E > M[C^2] /{[1-[(V/C)^2]]^(1/2)}. If we find that electrons are fundamental, will electric charge turn out to be composite and thus not a fundamental property of the universe? Will we some how find a way to truly violate the law of conservation of electric charge or will any such violations only be apparent and take the form of extracting already existing electric charge from another dimension?
Note that paradigm shifts have occurred several times in the history of physics. They are essentially as follows: Newtonian Dynamics to Special and General Relativity and Elementary Quantum Mechanics to Quantum Field Theory in the form of quantum electrodynamics and quantumchromodynamics to string theory to meta theory and the theory of higher dimensional membranes. It was once thought that electric charge could not come in fractional values in magnitude less than that of an electron, and now it is commonly known that quarks come in electric charge in integer multiples of 1/3 the magnitude of that of the electron with the smallest currently known value of electric charge of 1/3 the magnitude of that of an electron.
Where will future science take us? I think to the stars for one thing, and then afterward, it is anyone’s guess.
I will stop for the night since I am getting sleepy. Later this weekend, I hope to have summarized some more down to Earth information on other HEDMs as I have promised before. Note that the internet is awash with technical reports on HEDMs most of which seem to be only incremental steps above currently used chemical rocket fuel with energy densities of at most only a few times greater than LOX/H2 fuel. Still such incremental improvements can go along way to opening up the solar system to manned travel.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim i sure hope any or all of these ideas can work out,but when it comes to the new physics you mention up there,it reminded me of a really good idea a friend of mine mentioned ,i think it was late last year – although i think this could only be the product of some really advanced technology – find a really powerful energy source somewhere out there in space and then…excuse me(!!??) …BEAM some of that energy to your ships engine! i like the concept very much although i feel it is probably a long long time in our future! sadly i have to ad…if at all! lol big talk from a member of a society that is still flying old shuttles that every time we launch one we have to keep our fingers crossed.and…we are planning a great leap backword to project apollo in the 1960’s at the same time!! kind of funny if it where not tragic! but i heard yesterday,and this is encouraging,congress is just waiting to hear post griffen space exploration ideas! hope thats true.might even help us here immeasureably!!!well i look forward as always to hearing everyones comments!all the best your friend george
High George;
Thanks for the critique and comments.
Your friend’s idea of beaming energy from a really powerful source definately is worthy of more comment, and indeed, if it can be done in the future, holds promise for powering spacecraft in the far distant future.
Some potential extreme power sources are;
1) Blue Supergiant Stars which have short lives but absolute luminosity of up to and over 1 million times that of the Sun. Considering that the Sun converts about 4 million tons of matter into energy per second, this would put the energy output of Blue Supergiant Stars at over 4 trillion tons of matter converted to energy per second. This is enough energy to propel a 4 trillion metric ton spacecraft from zero to about .86 C in one second assumming the energy could be so utilized without ionizing the spacecraft in a tiny fraction of a second. Perhaps future scientists and engineers will find a way to do this.
2) Red Supergiant Stars which are stars in the late phase of stellar evolution and which have power outputs within the same general range as Blue Supergiants. However, the frequency of their radiation is lower than Blue Supergiants thus possibly enabling easier capture and reflectance of the star light.
3) Supermassive Black-hole Accretion Disks which in some circumstances outshine their entire host galaxies by a factor of 10 or more.
4) Cosmic Jets originating from supermassive blackholes as these blackholes process the infalling matter from their surrounding accreation disks.
5) The General Spacetime within the Observable Universe which is awash with real particle photon energy such as star light, cosmic rays, cosmic microwave background radiation etc. If this energy could some how be captured and utilized, perhaps by ultra high mass specific area values electromagnetic energy reflectors. ultra high mass specific power output microwave to electric power conversion membranes, ultra high mass specific power output photovoltaic membranes, etc., then we have a potentially astoundingly huge power source for interstellar spacecraft.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
I would like to make a brief clarification to the general readership of this site regarding item number 5) of my previous posting. The collection area of the free space electromagnetic energy harnessing device/membrane would have to be very large inorder to collect sufficient energy to be of use. Perhaps far distant future cosmic engineering projects could involve setting up such membranes at least partially enclosing galaxies, galaxy clusters, or even observable universe portions relative to diffierent points in cosmic distance scale space. If the observable universe from the vantage point of Earth could be enclosed in a relatively very low mass per unit area membrane (e.g., a ~ 1 to 100 metric ton per square kilometer highly reflective, PV, or microwave energy conversion membrane), then the mass of such a membrane would be roughly of the same order of magnitude to that of all of the stars in that same observable portion of the universe combined.
Perhaps such a membrane could have some sort of nanotechnology self repair mechanism and could trap and collect energy impinging on it from within as well as from outside the huge balloon so formed. The balloon may also need to be composed of a high strength high strain capable material so that it does not become pulled apart in the cosmic expansion process. Additionally, such a membrane might permit collection of enough outside energy wherein such energy could be piped into the balloon so as to produce enough mattergy density within the observable universe to prevent or slow cosmic expanion within the balloon by partially or fully countering the local spacetime expansion process through the increased gravitational self attraction of the mattergy located within.
Another possibility is that such a large energy boundary and/or collection mechanism might alter the vaccuum energy fields in space enclosed within and/or might effect the socalled dark energy field characteristics and or the characteristics of simmilar fields proposed to exist such as that referred to by the name of quintessence wherein such spacetime energy alteration effects might be used to slow potentially runaway cosmic expansion from within or otherwise be used to judiciously curve the spacetime within or locally outside of the balloon to facillitate long term transporation, industrial, and human and any extraterrestrial habitable environments within. Somehow, perhaps even the vacuum energy state of the observable universe in terms of the various zeropoint energy fields might be altered for the benefit of intergalactic transportation, energy collection for cosmic scale industry, and/or maintenece and expansion of human and any existent extraterrestrial habitable environments.
But before we are able to do cosmic construction on such a large scale, perhaps we can learn to build stars by collecting matter and depositing it in various locations. The possibility of building red dwarf stars, the smallest of stars which burn stably for about 10 EXP 15 years or 1,000 trillion years but yet still convert 100 metric tons of matter into energy per second each, might be great resources for prolonged habitability around such new stars for quadrillions of years into the future. Beaming stations might be set up around such stars to collect some or all of the stray light for atleast some of these artificially produced stars for purposes of interstellar and intergalactic manned spaceflight. The energy so harnessed might also be used for cosmic scale or atleast galactic scale engineering and construction projects in general including those necessary to increase the habitable environment for human and any existing extraterrestrial races assumming that at some point, if not currently, the combined population of any existent extraterrestrial civilizations is increasing with time.
Even before we are able to construct stars, setting up simmilar energy capturing mechanisms around naturally occuring stars may be of help for manned interstellar or manned intergalactic spaceflight. Science fiction is awash with stories about such stellar energy collection mechanisms, and as we already know, collection of sun light energy from interplanetary space stations is being seriously proposed as a mechanism within our solar system to provide beamed electromagnetic anergy, beamed kinetic energy, beamed nuclear fusion fuel and/or beamed antimatter/matter fuel for highly relativistic manned interstellar starships.
That’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
thanks for the comments jim! my god!! you DO NOT thhink small !!! we need more like you on this rock ! would help us get off it!! with sincere respect your friend george
Hi George;
It occurred to me about a decade ago to do the following thought experiment regarding relativistic rotating masses.
1) The first aspect of rotation would be the rotation of a flexible mass in the form of a toriod wherein the material composition of the torus would rotate around the circumferential centerline of the torus. To see what I mean, imagine grabbing a donut at diametrically opposed positions and twisting it with respect to its thickness. Now, a real donut would be torn apart by such action because of the mechanically weak properties of its constituent cake-like material.
2) The second aspect of rotation, in addition to the first aspect, would be to rotate the torus like a rotating automobile tire.
3) The third aspect of rotation, in addition to aspects 1) and 2) above would be to rotate the torus in a similar manner to that in which one would set a coin spinning with respect to a diametric axis of the coin on a table top.
4) The fourth aspect of rotation of the torus, in addition to aspects 1) – 3) above would be to induce a flipping motion to the torus, much as diametric axially spinning coin that also has an “top” end over “bottom” end flipping motion.
All of the above degrees of motion happening simultaneously would be hard to accomplish, not to mention maintain over extended periods of time, however, if such motion could be forced on a macroscopic piece of toriodal material of the requisite mechanical properties while at the same time, inducing the magnitude of the various rotational motions to extremely relativistic velocities, one might not only obtain Lorenzian special relativistic length scale contractions along tangential lines of motion for each differential element of the toriod rotating in each of the above four simultaneous degrees of freedom, one might also obtain general relativistic accelerated reference frame time dilation and perhaps other exotic effects.
Since energy would be put into the above system including energy to fight any tendencies for the above toriodal system to resist various aspect of rotation as a result of various degrees of rotational inertia opposing the four simultaneously forced rotation components and wherein the forced mechanical energy input to force the 4 degrees of rotation upon the torus simultaneously while maintaining the four velocity components at extremely relativistic magnitudes, it would make sense that the kinetic energy input into the torus would have to go somewhere instead of simply building up ad infinitum. If the system could be isolated mechanically from its surroundings except for a one way energy flow into the torus to force its four simultaneously occurring degrees of motion, perhaps the excess energy buildup would be emitted in the form of gravitational waves or gravitational radiation. It is natural to think that an intense gravity wave flux could emanate from the torus since the accelerations required to simultaneously force the four above degrees of motion would be of the magnitude for general relativistic accelerated reference frame behavior to be induced. Remember that in General Relativity, an acceleration is indistinguishable from a gravitational field which is interpreted by General Relativity as a distortion in four dimensional space-time.
It might be possible to produce exotic forms of gravity waves or other space-time distortive effects using such a system which could be applicable to gravatic propulsion, antigravity propulsion, warp drive, and/or wormhole production.
If such a system can produce exotic effects through mechanical motions, perhaps there is a similar system involving induced electrical current flow through the toriodal material, magnetic field emanating toriodal material, and/or electrical field emanating or net electrical charge containing toriodal material which would produce novel electromagnetic effects including perhaps some form of undiscovered electromagnetic effects such as new configurations of electromagnetic fields or electromagnetic waves. The four degrees of motion described above would be duplicated in terms of four degrees of simultaneous electrical current flow, four degrees of simultaneous magnetic field rotation, and four degrees of simultaneous electrical field rotation. The magnitude of each of these four degrees of rotational velocity could optionally be of highly relativistic scale and might be accompanied by the emission of intense gravity waves from the four mechanical aspects of motion described previously.
Perhaps additional novel effects could be produced and studied using superconductive materials for construction of the toriod including superconducting pathways for the transmission of any included electrical currents.
In order to test for matter/antimatter asymmetry in terms of inertia, gravity wave emissions, gravitational effects in general, electric fields, magnetic fields, and electrical currents, various apparatus having toriods made of antimatter might also be produced and experimented with in any and/or all of the manners described above.
In the event that it ever becomes possible to isolate cold dark matter of the form out of which solid objects can be constructed, similar experiments could be constructed with toriods made with cold dark matter providing cold dark matter with the requisite properties can be found and/or manufactured. The same could be said for any requisite antimatter versions of cold dark matter materials that could be found and collected and/or artificially produced.
Note that other shapes of objects and types of motions can be utilized in forced accelerations against inertia, highly relativistic rotations, and electrical current carrying, magnetic field emitting, and/or electrical field emitting apparatus as described for the case of the torus above. Also, in the case of the torus, although imposing all four degrees of motion upon the object would entail an interesting experimental set up, any subset or combination of the four degrees of rotation and/or subset of electromagnetic force fields might be utilized to isolate variables to more effectively study the related phenomenon. The relative magnitudes of the various velocity components and or electromagnetic force field components can be varied for a more complete set of test conditions.
For test objects composed of any requisite cold dark matter, such as for instance, supersymmetic matter/energy in the form of squarks and gluinos, sleptons and photinos, sneutrinos, gravitinos etc., the supersymmetic analogues to the behavior of, gravity waves and other gravitonic space-time distortions, electromagnetic fields, electric fields, electrical currents, and magnetic fields might be studied which might eventually lead to new technologies for interstellar and intergalactic manned space-travel.
Note that rotating objects in the shape of a torus might be especially useful for studying the above notions because of the orthogonal nature of the respective rotational components and the “right handed” system of orthogonal triple vectors that describe electromagnetic phenomenon from the perspective of Maxwell’s equations describing classical electrodynamics. In the case of the electrodynamics experiments described above, the orientation, direction, and strength of the electric and/or magnetic fields as well as that of any electric current might be reversed , changed, and varied respectively for a more complete study.
It is anyone guess as to when and whether any such experiments will or can be carried out, but the reader should understand that as the science and engineering discipline of kinematics evolves in the coming centuries as well as materials science, experiments that we have not even dreamed of will likely become possible to perform perhaps leading to new physics for yet improved manned interstellar travel and hopefully at some point, manned travel over galactic scale and even cosmic scale distances in space, space-time, or time, even perhaps travel into other hidden or unseen dimensions and other universes.
Anyhow, my brain is frazzled tonight and so I am going to call it quits for tonight.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim all of this seems like it is the basis of some very good and exciting ideas.as i began to read one of the first things that occured to me was,yes- but could such things even be built?stand the stress of the experiment without flying apart!! etc. but then at the end you reminded me that ,as science and engineering improve over the next few years (centuries),things will become possible of which we can barely dream as of right now! wonder how many intelligent races in the galaxy/universe are there right now lol !!!?? yes applications might be made from this concept to almost anything! well we did stipulate that it was a thought experiment. a beginning is what it is. i hope alot more of the people who read here will see the possibilites and ad their ideas concepts thoughts! respectfully your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the critical review and comments.
You are absolutely right in questioning whether or not such an apparatus could ever be built. Even the currently known and prospective materials such as carbon nanotubes are tens of orders of magnitude to weak to withstand the stresses that would result from such test apparatus that would approach highly relativistic velocities. Since the centripital accellerations on a differential element of a rotating turbine (e.g., one degree of natural rotation) and therefor the outward directed force on the differential element is proportional to the square of the rotational velocity in the non-relativistic limit, one would have a hard time even with carbon nanotubes achieving a rotational velocity of only 10 kilometers per second for a rotor only 1/10 of a meter in diamater. To achieve relativistic velocities, one would have to take into account relativistic mass increases and lorenz contraction based distortions. This would be quite impossible with any known materials. Given millions of years of materials science advancement, it might become possible.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
Perhaps I was a little bit pessimistic in my previous posting regarding the time frame for developing materials with the requisite strength for the test apparatus in my thought experiment. If we consider that we might be able to develope materials to hold wormholes open from collapse, perhaps the requiste materials conjectured about in my posting early this morning can be developed sooner rather than later.
Note that some potential materials candidates include some very strong forms of solid neutronium, quarkonium, strange matter and the like. Note that neutron stars rotate as fast as 1/3 of C, up to 1,000 revolutions per second dispite their huge size. No doubt that their self gravitational stability plays a role in the maxiimum rotational velocity they can achieve without flying apart. but still, if we are able to construct macroscopic objects. even small ones, made out of neutronium and/or quarkonium during the next millenia or two, we might have a good chance of conductiing some of the thought experiments I summarized early this morning.
Thanks for the encouragement;
Your Friend Jim.
well jim it always seems that ,heck even in our lifetimes,progress just seems to keep comming at us faster and faster.(!) nobody can say a real breakthrough will not be made even this year which might considerably accelerate these ideas! for that matter i just read in the latest issue of popular mechanics (an issue that sold itself to me quite easily with the cover story MEGA ENGINEERING!),that the large hadron collider is due to go on line this year!! appreciate hearing anything anybody might be able to say. but the lhc will certainly lead to greater understanding and probably faster breakthroughs and that in line with our subject…is supposed to begin this year!! really really cool. thank you your friend george
thank you for your thoughts jim.i guess the most important thing is that everybody keeps trying until somebody reaches that ahhh ha! moment. i’d like to hear from everybody on this by the way – your friend george
As one final attempt to beam my completely composed earlier message to the site.
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. It is good to be back onsite. Things got a little hectic down here in Fairfax VA, and so I did not have time until this morning to post. However, several more concepts for interstellar manned travel occurred to me today, at least most of which have been thought of by others before I thought about them. They are as summarized as follows.
1) The first concept involves using vary large amplitude gravity waves beamed between two distant objects such that the space between these objects is greatly contracted as the gravity wave travels between them. This can be accomplished by beaming a simple h+ or hx gravity wave between the two objects and perpendicular to the plane containing the two objects. The two objects would somehow be linked when they are closely located by a mechanical attachment means, a magnetic field, an electric field, or a gravity field link wherein when the gravity wave passes, both objects are displaced from their original position by virtue of their interconnection. If one object is much more massive than the other, I would expect the final position of linkage to be much closer to the large object’s initial position than to the smaller massed object’s original position. Perhaps a series of such objects could be placed in stages, wherein with each successive gravity wave passage, the object would make a jump further along the laid out series of increasingly massive objects with each gravity wave passage. A gravity wave with an amplitude of 1 would be ideal, however, a gravity wave with an amplitude of 1 – e where e
Jim, I can’t figure out what’s happening to your message, but I notice that it cuts off at the same place each time. I wonder if there’s a bit of code in there (from a text editor or something) that’s causing the abrupt cutoff? We’ve certainly had longer messages go through without difficulty. If I can figure out what this is, I’ll pass on the info.
Hi Paul;
Thanks for looking into the truncated posting difficulty. I will try to send the message again after I save it to a new file as a new document while trying to illiminate any text editor or etc. difficulties.
Very Respectfully;
Jim
Hi George;
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. It is good to be back onsite. Things got a little hectic down here in Fairfax VA, and so I did not have time until this morning to post. However, several more concepts for interstellar manned travel occurred to me today, at least most of which have been thought of by others before I thought about them. They are as summarized as follows.
1) The first concept involves using vary large amplitude gravity waves beamed between two distant objects such that the space between these objects is greatly contracted as the gravity wave travels between them. This can be accomplished by beaming a simple h+ or hx gravity wave between the two objects and perpendicular to the plane containing the two objects. The two objects would somehow be linked when they are closely located by a mechanical attachment means, a magnetic field, an electric field, or a gravity field link wherein when the gravity wave passes, both objects are displaced from their original position by virtue of their interconnection. If one object is much more massive than the other, I would expect the final position of linkage to be much closer to the large object’s initial position than to the smaller massed object’s original position. Perhaps a series of such objects could be placed in stages, wherein with each successive gravity wave passage, the object would make a jump further along the laid out series of increasingly massive objects with each gravity wave passage. A gravity wave with an amplitude of 1 would be ideal, however, a gravity wave with an amplitude of 1 – e where e < 1 would also be useful. Now, as the amplitude of a gravity wave approaches 1, the greater the resultant space-time distortion, and so, some method of preventing the two objects effected by the gravity wave would need to be devised to prevent the two objects from being torn apart by gravitational space-time induced stretching and compression. Maybe electromagnetic forces within the objects such as electrostatic forces, magneto-static forces, electro-dynamic forces, and/or magneto-dynamic forces could be of help here. Perhaps multiple (even many) gravity waves could be beamed to a given location wherein they would superpose in such a manner that the space distance contraction, as the superposition of gravity waves arose, would be greater than any such contraction due to a single simple gravity wave (e.g., an h+ or an hx gravity wave) that could be generated by a given future human or present and/or future extraterrestrial civilization with a given technology level. Thus, an effective superposed gravity wave amplitude of almost 100% might be achieved by superposing numerous low amplitude gravitational waves wherein the superposition takes place in a given region of space-time. It would seem highly probable that as we learn more about gravity waves, super-positions of basic h+, hx, and circularly polarized gravity waves may be artificially produced in such a manner that exotic gravity wave phenomenon are uncovered or perhaps temporary exotic space-time distortion effects would be made manifest which can be of use, perhaps, in the formation of wormholes, space-time warps, general space-time-wise gravity induced teleportation, electro-gravatic effects, magneto-gravatic effects, and electro-magneto-gravatic effects. As we learn to produce gravity waves of useful amplitude, we will need a practical science of studying their superposition in an analogous way that Fourier Analysis including Fourier Series, the Fourier Transform, and the Fast Fourier Transform are useful in studying electromagnetic signals and for the engineering of RF, MW, and fiber optic transceiving equipment. Gravity waves will, however, pose more of a challenge here, especially since gravity self gravitates. Any Fourier Analysis like study of complex, very intense gravity wave field flux states representing elaborate superposed states will need to take into account the non-linearity of gravitational phenomena, especially in the limit that the space-time distortion becomes very great, e.g., to the point where general relativity is necessary to model this non-linearity. 2) Another idea occurred to me, which along with the idea described above was thought of by others before I had ever conceived of it, involves the notion of entering a spacecraft into the rotating space-time around a near maximal velocitied spinning black-hole and then using powerful space propulsion mechanisms to accelerate the space craft ever closer to C around the black-hole while maintaining a reasonably safe distance from the black-hole. Perhaps the combined velocity of the spacecraft traveling near C with respect to the rotating space-time in the vicinity of the black hole and the rotational velocity of the space-time around the black-hole due to general relativistic reference frame dragging would exceed C with respect to the local but non-immediate regions to the black hole, e.g., for local regions where the Newtonian Approximation to gravitating masses becomes accurate. Perhaps a coupling could be maintained between the spacecraft traveling around the black hole within the strongly rotating black hole external space-time and a local reference frame spacecraft further away from the black hole by way of a linkage formed between the two spacecraft before the first spacecraft enters the highly distorted space-time in the immediate vicinity of the black hole. Such a linkage might conceivably be produced and maintained through the process of quantum entanglement wherein photons, phonons, magnons, plasmons, and other quantum level disturbances are bifurcated, trifurcated etc, by an appropriate beam splitter apparatus wherein say half or one third of the divided original beam energy, or whatever, is diverted and stored within a storage mechanism located within the spacecraft that will enter the immediate vicinity of the black hole while the other portion of the divided beam energy is removed away from the black hole but local to the black hole within the second spacecraft. The purpose of providing such a coupling might be to establish a link between two reference frames nearly co-located wherein the relative velocity of the ship approaching C with respect to the rotating reference frame of the black hole and that of the more remotely located ship would exceed C but yet with the possibility that the two ships could be casually connected, or at least coupled, by quantum entanglement between the split photons and/or quasi-particles. Perhaps a strong enough coupling can be produced by using all the more particles for a greater effect that might manifest undiscovered and/or untested casual linkages between two bodies essentially collocated wherein the relative velocities of the two bodies exceed C. The concept is similar to two cosmically distant located spacecraft wherein the relative velocity of recession of the two space times containing the spacecraft exceeds C, or the case where the relative space-time recessional velocity of the two space times containing the spacecraft is almost C but wherein the spacecraft are traveling in opposite directions to each other while at the same time traveling at a velocity of just under C with respect to their local reference frames. Perhaps a large enough black hole can be eventually be found to test and/or utilize this phenomenon for space-time warp travel, time travel, or other form of travel that utilizes exotic, currently undeveloped mass and/or energy transport phenomena. Note that a super massive black hole might be required to minimize the tidal forces acting on the orbiting spacecraft. 3) Another possibility to test such a phenomenon would be to find a rapidly rotating neutron star and accelerate a spacecraft to just under C around the star. Obviously, some way would have to be devised to handle the tidal forces acting on the spacecraft as well as the tremendous acceleration induced forces on the spacecraft and its contents as it travels around the star at near C. If the spacecraft could approach C close enough, for example C- [C(10 EXP-20)] < V< C, then perhaps such a combined velocity effect could be measured and/or utilized using an ordinary star like the Sun. 4) Another idea occurred to me that involves the utilization of the fact that gravity acts on its self. The idea would be to produce narrow gravity beams that do not significantly diverge except over very long periods of time wherein the gravitational radiation beams would be released in such a manner that they orbit each other and remain in orbit around each other for relatively long periods of time without significant gravitational energy leakage by processes that would cause the beams to diverge. Note that a similar process occurs for light traveling in tangential directions to the event horizon, but outside of the event horizon of a black hole. This light orbits a non-rotating black hole at a distance of 1.5 times the radius of the black hole’s event horizon However, in a naturally occurring and uncontrolled black hole, the light orbiting the black hole does so in an unstable manner due to the fact that the light interacts with infalling matter and also due to the fact that any deviation of the path of a given photon traveling within the photosphere of a black-hole will cause it to either fall into the black hole or travel away from the black hole. At the very least, one would expect that a gravity wave or graviton traveling within the gravitational analogue of a photosphere would do the same. However, if indeed gravity wave beams can be produced which have enough energy content to travel about a common center of gravity due to their mutual self gravitation for even a relatively short but macroscopic time period, perhaps new physics can be discovered which might have broad applications for both manned interstellar and even manned intergalactic travel, and other industrial processes. 5) The fifth concept I will summarize tonight involves using beamed gravitational energy to power an interstellar manned spacecraft. Here, the gravitational energy would be beamed in a laser like collinear beam over interstellar and even intergalactic distances to the spacecraft. Depending on the gravitational energy to spacecraft motion energy conversion mechanism and the sign of the gravitational radiation beam, i.e., gravity or antigravity, the beam could be effectively utilized to propel the craft whether or not it impinges on the stern or the bow of the space craft. Obviously,. some mechanism which promotes strong interaction (word not in the nuclear force sense) between the gravity waves and the ship would need to be devised. 6) The sixth concept I will elaborate on involves the notion of turning a person’s body and/or spacecraft into gravitational waves and then beaming the person’s body and/or craft over interstellar distances, perhaps one day, even cosmic distances in space-time or perhaps even time itself. Note that there is no known mechanism that interferes with gravity except gravity itself, Thus in theory, a gravity wave beam so composed, as long as it could be kept collinear, would interact even much less with the interstellar and intergalactic media than neutrinos would. Note that neutrinos are so non-reactive to ordinary matter that they could pass through several light-years of solid lead without being significantly attenuated. Perhaps, transporting the human and/or extraterrestrials’ bodies and/or any associated spacecraft into higher dimensional space, other 4 Dimensional Einsteiniam space-time realms such as other 4 –D space-time universes, etc,. might be more readily accomplished using material object to gravitational energy beam conversion means for transport due to the fact that gravity is theoretically more closely associated with space-time in the sense that gravitational phenomena are interpreted as a function of space-time curvature in general relativity. 7) According to the seventh concept to be summarized here today, it might even be the case that bifurcated gravity waves or gravitons will one day be used to perform quantum teleportation of the quantum information defining the human body or associated spacecraft and imprint this information on a remotely located mass wherein the mass would act as a host for the information carried by gravitational energy so transported thus completing the teleportation process. The gravitational waves that carry the quantum mechanical information could have outstandingly high values of quantum information transport fidelity and might even be used to transport,. via quantum information teleportation, the information defining a human body or manned spacecraft over cosmic distances or into other universes, higher dimensional space times etc. as distinguished from the concept of converting a human body or spacecraft entirely into an equivalent amount of gravitational mattergy which would then be beamed to a remote location and then reassembled according to the technique summarized in section 6) above. Note that at the very least, gravity waves might one day make an excellent transmission medium for interstellar communication provided appropriate reception and transmission technologies can be developed to detect, decode, and transmit gravitational carrier wave based signals. That’s all for now; Thanks; Your Friend Jim
Hi George and Paul,
I just received the latest issue of Science News which features an article about a credible experiment deployed in or about to be deployed in Antarctica wherein an attempt is going to be made to detect antimatter helium, which depending on the experimental outcome, may offer some strong evidence that there might be some entire galaxies composed entirely of antimatter: if true, a very interesting prospect.
Any such confirmation would be an interesting validation of a notion that has fallen in and out of favor among cosmologists over the past several decades. I guess we will have to wait to see what happens. If such antimatter supplies exist, perhaps a distant future quest would involve somehow collecting or otherwise using such a vast reserve of antimatter for space travel and/or other infrastructure elements and industrial applications.
By the way, I apologize to You George, Paul, and any of the other readers of the site if I came on a little strong by frequently attempting to post a blog that became somehow truncated. As always, this web site is not about me, but is meant for and about anyone wishing to facilitate serious discussion regarding interstellar travel and also about the reader in general who shares a common interest and curiosity regarding the subject. I sometimes get a little impatient but mean no harm by it.
Respectfully;
Your Friend Jim
jim,paul,everybody – had an idea i wanted to share with everybody a couple of days ago,thought i’d post it here to see if anybody wanted to give their opinion. point is : i know that enrico firmi (unless i am wrong) stated that if there are intelligent aliens,then where are they?! well look at it this way and please cut me some slack if i don’t state it as well as it deserves. let’s say that we could send a really good message to leonardo davinci and that we where going to send it by radio!? well first of all he would not be familiar with the concept of radio! and secondly and perhaps more to the point he would not have a radio!! maybe then,although we are smart as he was smart,we are suffering the same problems when it comes to highly advanced intelligent aliens! they broadcast in a medium we do not yet suspect AND the hardware too is way beyond us at the moment also.might be alot of proof of intelligent aliens it is just that at this present time it is useless to us! hope i got my point across in a way that was clear enough for eveybody to get,that is to say that i did not muck it up too badly! all the best to everybody and…what do you think? respectfully all your friend george
Hello George – If you want some idea of how different really
advanced ETI might be from humanity – and not just in terms of
technology – check out these Web sites:
http://www.aeiveos.com:8080/%7Ebradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/index.html
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
Hi George and ljk;
Thanks for the comments and insights.
George, You make an excellent point about any intellegent extraterrestrials using communications media and equipment that we might not be able to detect-something that has to be looked into by those seeking methods of detecting alien civilizations. However, if we are able to develop huge space telescopes, perhaps optical VLBI telescopes, we might be able to see the large scale structures on extraterrestrial occupied planets such as large buildings and other structures. It has been suggested that using lunar craters to house hundreds of optical reflectors, each reflector being hundreds of meters wide, wherein the reflectors form a computationally linked VLBI distributed over an area greater than 100 Km wide, it might be possible to resolve the tree lines on mountains on planets as far away as 100 light years. This should be of high enough resolution to detect extraterrestrial cities and even individual buildings. What’s more, we would in theory be able to effectively look back in time, a century ago for planets 100 light years away and see what the extraterrestrials were doing a century before such telescopes would go on line.
Even larger arrays, say those with billions of square kilometers of collection area distributed over a region in deep space 100s of millions of kilometers across as a VLBI, might enable us to see extraterrestrial beings going about their daily tasks in other galaxies, thus effectively looking back in time 10s to 100s of millions of years.
Larger arrays yet might enable us to look back and see the first extraterrestrials to exist on the earliest formed planets within our universe.
All of this might seem like a pipe dream, however, there is one good technology that might concievably allow us to do such observations, and that is ultra reflective, ultra-high-precision, nanotechnologically adjusted, very large membranes that are constantly adjusted in real time by computers and nanoactuators and linked together as a VLBI optical telescope. Such activities might be accomplishable within a few centuries if we develope a thriving planetary spacefaring industry and civilization. Perhaps, concurrently or subsequently, we can start and even complete manned missions to stars within a few dozen light year radius of earth (of which there are roughly one thousand).
ljk, it is interesting to contemplate the exotic forms that extraterrestrial technologies might take. Also, I have often wondered what sort, if any, sporting events or athletic events do they participate in. It would be interesting to know about their religious beliefs and what form of, if any, worship services they attend. Also, if they eat foods containing carbohydrates, proteins, and fats like we do, I would be curious as to what their meals taste like and whether or not they have numerous restuarants like we do on Earth especially here in the United States. There are numerous cultural, scientific, religious, political, economical, technological, psychological, and sociological aspects that any existing extraterrestrial civilizations and individuals might have that the possibility of finding hard evidence of such civilizations within the first if not second half of this century intrigues me to the point of great enthusiasm.
That’s all for now. I will be back on site this evening.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
ljk and jim,thank you very much for those sites that deal with potential alien civilizations! very interesting!and i have already inquired of one of them and placed it on my favorite places list! jim,good ideas as always.and as to what type of “sports” aliens might play…well i imagine it would go something like this: as they first evolved probably something like the sports we developed.but then many years down the road more like the cerebral games that you saw played in 3-d aboard picards enterprise! but finally when they get really advanced…who can say? would they still feel a need for sports?quite possibly. but now their “games” would probably be nothing like anything we would readily recognize. lol thank you i never gave any thought before to the concept of advanced aliens visavie sports!!! :) your friend george ps,how about it everybody else?what are your ideas on really advanced aliens?anything or everything about them!? are they sitting right next to us now at our computers and we just have no way of knowing? lol your friend george
Unless beings everywhere evolve just like us, asking about
their sports, religion, and diets are likely irrelevant. That is
why I pointed to those Web sites – they take us way out of
the Star Trek Every Alien is a Humanoid box and make us
think beyond ourselves and our pale blue dot.
We keep thinking that ETI all live on Earthlike planets around
yellow dwarf suns and behave pretty much like we do. This
is likely not the case and one reason why SETI has had no
luck so far (the other reason being that the Milky Way galaxy
is huge and we are hardly its most prominent resident).
Read this article to get an idea of where we should be searching
if we want to find beings that we can actually detect if not
actually contact:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2006-10-22-seti-search_x.htm
ljk i read your comments above,i agree. also i read the article you suggested above too and yes maybe we have not found because we have just about barely looked so far! i agree with the article too. thank you very much my friend george ps that organization i believe it was called orions arm – they had a contact button and i wrote them…quickly got back a message that my email was undeliverable.makes me wonder how active they are.but they still are on my favorite places and i’ll very soon go back for a good look,may have missed something for all i know.but again,thank you for bringing them to my attention. hope we can talk again soon your friend george
ljk,just got back from a look at orions arm…found another way to contact them and sent off an e mail immediately got back a second undeliverable message!! is anybody home over there?? i do not blame anyone but i just wonder if you could clarify what may be going on. respectfully your friend george please also,feel free to contact me at udt109@aol.com anytime.there are several people i speak to on a regular basis on these subjects and there is always room for one more! by the way above is not just aimed at ljk anyone here should feel free. thank you george