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.
Hi George and ijk;
Thanks for the critique and comments.
Other very long term prospects for obtaining energy for intersteller transport occured to me over the past several hours.
1) The first idea is a spin off of one I mentioned a few days ago but is developed on a much grander scale. Basically, I thought that a nanotech self assembly microwave and radio fequency grid would be set up around the roughly observable universe wherein the grid would have a means to build itself into a larger grid by incorporating atoms and/or molecules from the interstellar medium. It would optionallly be made of high strain, high elastic modulous material so that it could stretch as the observable universe expanded along with the rest or unobservable portion of our universe. The grid would have, maintain, and/or adjust the spacings between its grid lines for maximum reflectance, and/or energy conversion of incident CMBR to electrical current. The grid might optionally be composed partially or entirely of superconducting materials.
Cables would direct any current produced to local mass drivers, electric powered laser and/or electromagnetic energy beaming stations, electric powered gravitational wave beam generation stations, tachyon beam generation stations, supersymmetric matter and/or energy beaming stations, dark energy generation stations, and the like. All of this assumes that gravitational wave beams can be produced that are useful for propulsion, and that tachyons, and sypersymmetic mattergy exist.
These beam energy supplies could be used to power spacecraft traveling inside or outside of the grid. The types of craft that could concievably be powered by such are: beamed energy cosmic sailing ships; photon, electron, ion, neutrino, tachyon, etc. rockets; MPHDD, EPHDD, EMPHD systems; antigravity, electrogravatic, and/or other warp drive systems; wormhole transporation infrastructure, quantum teleporation systems, massive object to beamed energy transport systems, some of the proposed electromagnetic field based teleporation systems, etc.
Plans could be made to launch expeditionary missions to build other grids for enclosing other adjacent locally obseravable portions of our universe. However, methods would have to be established to prevent destruction of adjacent grids caused by the grids running into one another for cases that involve grid growth faster than the expansion of the space-time contained within. Some sort of sensing apparatus built into the grids at local intervals might be of use in such collision avoidance.
Additionally such grids could be built into other universes or big bangs that have the same laws of physics, force constants, and forces and particles that our universe does assumming that such simmilar universes or big bangs exists.
Other expanding grids could be used to encapsulate expanding regions of higher dimensional space-time wherein the grids would use some form of microscopic self assembly to increase their size as the higher dimensional spacetime located within them and/or externally to them expands. This might necessitate the ability to construct the grids out of materials found in such higher dimensional space and also to reflect and/or convert energy forms that are found in and that are thus compatable with the higher dimensional spaces.
As our universe expands, the increased wavelenth of the CMBR would allow the useful effective grid line spacing seperation distances to be increased to allow for a lower mass to area ratio of the grid.
Note that simmillar expanding self assembly grids that are composed of any appropriate froms of cold dark matter might be of use in reflecting dark energ of some types, perhaps even the some of the supersymmetric energy counterparts to electromagnetism and gravitational energy if such exists.
George and ljk, keep thinking and studying about the possibility of ETI and various froms that ETI might have. In the off beat chance that we might actually contact ETI in the next half century, we will need people like you to study and communicate with the extraterrestrials in an intellectually mature manner so as to be taken seriously by the ETs.
That’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim just tried to post an answer to the above but lost it due to some kind of electronic hic up !! basically said your technological ideas above are good but probably un realizeable for a long time! and that i hope we do contact eti within 50 years and that i think we have a chance of being here for that! just saw an article in a local paper about a guy who does not live far from me who just realized his 104th birthday!!! thank you jim thank you ljk.hope to hear from you soon and all the best.your friend george
George, I just sent an e-mail to this address listed on
Orion’s Arm and received a positive response:
alankazlev@ihug.com.au
Good luck!
ljk,thank you very much! i have already used the info you so graciously provided above to ask my question.so far so good!! if all works out this site might be worth its weight in gold! or lol,at least gold plated latinum!!! all the best,your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critique. I truely hope to live at least to mid century to witness the developments in aerospace and astronautics. Heck, maybe I be able to hop on a Mars Express Spacelines Flight. Contacting any ETI in the next half century would be an occasion for great fireworks displays and other celebrations unlike mankind has ever seen before. I would love the off beat slim chance to invite one of the ETs over for dinner if they were prone to eat the same food we do and talk about matters of science, culture, technology with them.
I will try to have more material regarding manned spaceflight to post within a couple of days. It is a little hectic down here in Fairfax and so I will probably not have a chance to summarize more material until then.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George and ljk;
I checked out the Orionsarm website and it looked very interesting. I intend to check out the othet links provided in ljk’s posting above later today.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim and ljk,thank you for your comments jim i hope to get to read more soon.also,i will keep a close eye on the orions arm site as well. ljk,thank you that address you sent me above was aces! all the best guys your friend george
Hi George;
Another set of concepts potentially useful in the far future for interstellar travel occurred to me today and which are summarized below.
1) The first concept involves the assumption that the so-called energy body or spirit body that people claim to perceive themselves as having upon so-called near death experiences as well those forms often seen or perceived in alleged encounters with deceased relatives and pets wherein the person undergoing the near death experiences makes claims that he can sense the personalities and in some cases familiar facial features and other aspects of the energy or spirit bodies of their deceased loved ones.
If such is indeed true, it would seem to me that the energy bodies of human beings on Earth are continuously being modified at least in terms of their accidental properties by interacting with their host physical bodies in order to have the look of their host bodies upon passing to the next life as is often allegedly the case for people who meet their deceased relatives while having near death experiences. Thus, it would seem to me that any such energy bodies, while still connected to their host bodies on Earth, could possibly be continuously modified by physical structural changes taking place within the human body, electrochemical activities such as metabolic processes, and/or neuronal-electric processes within the human bodies nervous system especially within the central nervous system, etc,. Note that alleged experiments involving Kirlian Photography wherein photographic techniques of observing cut tree leafs in a completely dark lead lined room show the missing part of the cut leave still attached to the main portion of the leaf for several minutes after the removal of the imaged part of the leaf in such a way that the imaged missing part of the leaf seems to be part of the leaf’s attached “energy body”. Since this imaged object is detectable by electromagnetic processes, perhaps electromagnetic, electrochemical, magnetic, and/or electric field processes are also involved in the existence if not production of the ghost leaf portion that is imaged. If this is the case, then one would think that electromagnetic, electrochemical, magnetic, and/or electric field processes are responsible for producing or at least modifying any existent human energy bodies while they are still connected or united to their physical bodies on Earth..
The point to which I am directing the reader of this blog is that if such an energy body can be modified and even possible maintained in existence if not continually being recreated by its union with and interaction with the human body, perhaps a similar process can be discovered which would allow the production of technological artifacts including starships out of the same material out of which human energy bodies are composed whether the bodies are connected to their host bodies on Earth or in a disembodied state in the next life. It occurred to me that if such energy body material creation processes can be artificially duplicated, then perhaps spaceships and other transportation infrastructure can be manufactured out of similar material that is perhaps even much more intense or robust than any disembodied human energy body material composition simply by duplicating and intensifying the thermodynamic processes that result in the creation and or modification of human energy bodies in another medium such as might occur in a confined vat of electrochemicals, a complex web of micro or nano-electronic circuits that continuously morph in the way that the human central nervous system does, and/or a complex arrangement of micro or nano-electronic magnetic, electrical, and/or electromagnetic field emitters. Perhaps the human energy body is simply some form of yet to be discovered electromagnetic field residue that is built up over years of living and continuously modified by metabolic electrochemical, micromechanical, nano-mechanical, electrical, magnetic, and electromagnetic processes. It would seem that extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields might also play a role in the development and maintenance of any existent human energy bodies since such electromagnetic fields are ever present and emanated from the human body by neurological activity as well as low frequency changes in electrochemical potentials within the human body as a result of or in association with general metabolic processes.
Any such technology, if indeed such is possible, might allow us to produce technological artifacts such as spaceships that we can actually touch, stand on, and/or enter and activate for manned interstellar transportation. One would have to be very careful with unwise use of such technology, because to the extent that the energy bodies of the deceased are not completely protected by God, such a technology could in theory be used to manipulate such energy bodies and perhaps even injure if not destroy such energy bodies just as a bullet which is made of more dense and stronger material than the human body can injure or kill a human body being fired upon.
Perhaps residual electromagnetic energy or whatever material any existent energy bodies are composed of can be artificially produced and collected and used as an energy source to power physical matter spaceships such as electron, ion, photon, tachyon, neutrino, hot dark matter rockets, beamed energy powered ships, MPHDD, EPHDD, EMPHDD powered ships, antigravity, warp-drive powered ships, wormhole traveling crafts, quantum teleportation craft, macroscopic level quantum tunneling craft etc, assuming the more exotic types of craft listed in this series are possible to construct and made to work.
2) If such technology and materials can be produced through the manipulation of the electromagnetic force, then perhaps other forces can be manipulated for the production of an analogous material such from as gravitation, For the production of the gravitational energy analogue of such residual electromagnetic material, perhaps very dense microscopic bits of matter can be held in a vat or other confinement mechanism and vibrated or other wise perturbed while in the presence of microscopic gravity wave generators that produce gravity waves in a large range of frequencies. Any such material would have to be studied for safety purposes so as not to injure the energy bodies not completely protected by God as well as the energy bodies of those still living on Earth. As is the case for the production and application of any electromagnetic residue, the gravitational analogue might be used as a material to construct interstellar spacecraft and/or used as a power source to provide energy for electron, ion, photon, tachyon, neutrino, hot dark matter rockets, beamed energy powered ships, MPHDD, EPHDD, EMPHDD powered ships, antigravity, warp-drive powered ships, wormhole traveling crafts, quantum teleportation craft, macroscopic level quantum tunneling craft etc..
3) Other potential if even remotely possible force analogous of such residual materials as described in sections 1) and 2) above include those produced by the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Using super-symmetric matter and/or energy might offer the production of corresponding materials made out of the particles and fields proposed to exist in the theories of super-symmetry.
4) Perhaps to facilitate the production of ultra “intense” artificially produced residual force field materials, the potentially huge energy sources available in the form of depolarized vacuum energy fields might be used in the thermodynamic mattergy actions required to produce any such materials.
Now as a Catholic middle aged man, it took me some courage to compose this blog since I feel I am stepping out on the water a little bit by making such conjectures, however, I do not thing that such conjectures are incompatible with the notion of the immortality or safety of the souls of deceased persons for the following reasons.
a) First, any existing energy bodies used or incorporated into the make-up of deceased persons might not actually be the essence or spiritual substance of their soul (in the scholastic ontological sense of the word), but rather just an appendage or tool that the soul uses to live practically in the next world and/or communicate with and otherwise interact with others in the next life. Therefore, perhaps the destruction of any such energy body might not in any way effect the essential aspects of the disembodied human soul. In fact, by ways known only to God, such energy body destruction might even allow the soul to advance to a higher level of being or level of functioning
b) Second, even if the human soul or spirit is simply only the energy body felt or “seen” by those who have had out of body experience, perhaps there could be no harm done to these energy bodies by human technology in this world because such energy bodies could remain safely away from this world by Gods will, or his providential guidance and instruction to the deceased not to attempt to come back to Earth. In fact, such deceased persons might not be able to come back to this world even if they really tried to or wanted.
c) And thirdly, even if such energy bodies could be destroyed, perhaps there is a finer level or hidden energy body that would take over the functions of being a human person in the event that the first energy body was destroyed by some unknown manner or for some unknown reason or purpose known only to God. If we are willing to conjecture that there might be a secondary energy body made from a finer material or substance than the first energy body, then why not conjecture about a third, fourth, and onward ad- infinitum series of energy bodies available to the human person.
Now I have really gone out on the limb here, but who has come back from the dead to provide us with an exhaustive account of the dynamic life processes that occur in the next world. Remember, that we as a scientific society are willing to consider the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life, something which seems not to be at all mentioned in the Holy Bible or any other mainstream faith-based source, so why not at least consider some or all of the notions summarized above.
That’s all for now. I plan to be back onsite within a day or so.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi Jim
I think Kirilian photography was debunked years ago. That’s not to say that there isn’t some kind of organising electromagnetic field around living things – there’s plenty of evidence for such – but that particular “evidence” isn’t really evidence.
Personally I think “energy bodies” is an unphysical concept as it implies that energy can somehow exist in structured form without matter and without dispersing at the speed of light. There’s no evidence for such things, but there’s plenty of room for other possibilities – in Theosophy “bodies” exist in parallel physical “planes” with different physics. The recent ideas of our Universe existing as a “brane” in a higher dimensional “bulk” also makes possible the existence of other “branes” parallel to our own, updating the physics of Theosophy – itself based heavily on 19th Century physics.
Alternatively there maybe lifeforms based on coherent, macroscopic plasmas. Very complicated structures can form in “dusty plasmas” – charged dust in an ionised gas – and there’s also lots of plasma physics evidence for ordered systems of pure plasma. Circulating plasmas in toroidal form can be stable for long periods and could even provide a high-density energy storage system in the future.
Ancient cultures often had a surprisingly physicalist understanding of “spirit entities” – for centuries the Church held that angels were composed of fire and air. And in the Hebrew Bible, Homer and countless other sources, the wind/breath/spirit were indistinguishable, and rarely differentiated from God’s Spirit itself. An invisible motive principle – psyche/soul/spirit/ruach – filled the whole world and everything in motion, exemplified by the Heavens themselves, was propelled by that motive principle.
There’s no direct analogue of that concept in modern physics, though what we call “energy” comes close, and is as hard to pin down as spirit ever was.
Hi Adam;
Thanks for the comments and critical review of my previous posting. The concept of updating Theosophy with 21st Century physics is intreging to me in some ways. It is also interesting to note that, as you said, what we call energy is as hard to pin down as spirit ever was. It is interesting to note that many science fiction writers used the term organized energy fields or pure energy to describe dissembodied states of human and/or ETI personalities. Perhaps a paradymn shift is required when discussing the concept of dissembodied human souls or deceased persons. Just because Plato and Aristotle held the notion of souls being immaterial forms or being what Middle Age Schoolastics referred to as spiritual substances does not mean that such notions need to persist in the future. As human scientific knowledge progresses, perhaps other nomenclature with new concepts can and may be developed to describe dissemboded states of the human soul. If we as a culture are willing to propose such concepts as future artificially augmented human intellegence and even future storage of human personalities in some sort of down loadable or uploadable information storage media, then why not consider recasting human ontological anthropology in terms of energy or some sort of simple and/or organized energy fields. Since philosophers are willing to consider a distinction between the faculties or the soul (or accidental properties of the soul) and the substance of the soul itself, they seem to be making a distinction between the conscious self or the “I” and the substance of the soul itself. Therefore, they seem to be advcocating that the substance of the soul is not human consciousness in itself. If it is not consciousness, then what is it? Perhaps it is more accurately described as some spiritual material. If the essense of the human soul is some sort of non-consciousness aspect of human nature, then why can’t such an aspect be some form of pure energy.
That’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
ok adam,ok jim,do i believe in life after death?the spirit etc. ? yes indeed i do !! funny thing i wish i could recall,in one of the star trek episodes with picard,data asks picard about death,picard answers in a wry fashion “oh is that all!?”then he goes on to give one of the best most cogent set of ideas on the subject i have ever heard.making perfect sense.do me a favor everyone…does anyone recall the title of that episode,please forward it to me! thanks in advance your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the critique and comments.
I will plan to have more concepts summarized regarding inter planetary space and local interstellar travel that are more down to Earth in a day or so. In particular, I will summarize some more ideas on nuclear isomers and how they might be useful for these aspects of manned spaceflight.
Thanks Again;
Your Friend Jim
Hey, George, there’s a Lis Cotter on this list who talked about a comet hitting earth in November (she got this from her psychic) and I think you two would get along just fine.
kelvin,no chance my psychic does’nt agree!! hahahahaha george
George Scaglione,
Are you by any chance related to an AnneMarie Scaglione who was from NJ and attended Hanover Park High School?
Hi George;
Its good to be back on site.
A few more concepts occurred to me regarding interstellar propulsion methods which may best be categorized as cosmically environmentally friendly for time scales into the very remote future.
1) The first concept involves the decay of Bismuth-209 to Thallium-205 in about 4.6 X 10 EXP 19 years. The Bismuth-209 could be used as a slow release energy source to power space-faring humans and perhaps extraterrestrials well into the cosmic future if enough of this element can be manufactured or enough naturally occurring is found. This isotope of Bismuth decays into Thallium by alpha particle decay which means that it emits an alpha particle (a helium nucleus) to become Thallium-205.
If large stores of Bismuth-209 could be used to power radio-thermal generators or radio-electric generators wherein large aggregates of this elemental isotope were assembled at discrete locations to power beamed energy and/or beamed massive particle propelled ships, perhaps long duration fuel supplies as such could exist for time periods many times greater than the half-life of this element. When the element fuel at a given station has mostly decayed to Thallium-205, the Thallium-205 could be beamed upon by a beam composed of whatever particles are effective (of appropriate energies) for capture or transmutation of the Thallium-205 to facilitate the remanufacture the original supply of Bismuth-209 thus allowing a stable energy supply for another 4.6 X 10 EXP 19 years. The process could be repeated over and over again as long as the predecessor of cosmic microwave background radiation (which will be low frequency radio wave energy at that remote point of time in the future) and/or Doppler shifted starlight exists to be captured and converted into the massive particles required to transmute the Thallium into Bismuth-209. These massive particles could be created by special energy loss resistant particle accelerators that produce massive particles such as neutrons, protons, electrons etc..
2) The second concept is very much similar to the first concept and involves the radioactive decay of Selenium-82 into Krypton-82. Selenium-82 has a half-life of 1.08 X 10 EXP 20 years and decays into Krypton-82 by double beta decay (emission of two electrons otherwise known as beta rays). Krypton-82 is stable. A similar procedure to that given above in section 1) can be applied to Selenium-82 to power spacecraft and other industrial infrastructure very long into the future. The residual Krypton-82 can be transformed into Selenium-82 by appropriately bombarding the Krypton-82 with requisite particle species. The longer half life of Selenium-82 affords a longer duration of effective radioactivity to supply radio-thermal, radio-electric, etc. generators to power star ships. Thus the time periods between required remanufacture of Selenium-82 are roughly 2.5 times longer than that required for Bismuth-209.
3) The third concept in nearly identical to the first two concepts and involves in part the isotopes of Cadmium-108 and Cadmium-106 which decay by double-electron-capture-2-neutrino-emission respectively into Palladium-108 and Palladium-106 respectively . Cadmium-108 and Cadmium-106 have half lives of greater 9.5 X 10 EXP 17 and 6.7 X 10 EXP 17 years respectively. Cadmium-113 decays into Indium-113 by beta decay and has a half-life of 7.7 X 10 EXP 15 years. Cadmium-116 and Cadmium-114 decay into Tin-116 and Tin-114 by two-neutrino-double-beta-decay and have half-lives of greater than 9.3 X 10 EXP 17 years and 2.9 X 10 EXP 19 years respectively.
It is conceivable that: electron, ion, photon, neutrino, and/or tachyon (if they exist) rockets; MPHDD, EPHDD, EMPHDD; beamed energy and/or massive particle momentum transfer sailing ships; electrogravatic propulsion, antigravity propulsion, general warp drive, (if such is possible); traversable wormhole production (if we learn how to produce them); macroscopic quantum-mechanical tunneling, macroscopic quantum information teleportation, proposed macroscopic electromagnetic field induced teleportation schemes (if such is possible) etc., could make use of such long term energy storage systems.
At this point, the reader might ask, why go through all the trouble of securing such long lived radioactive isotopes when there might be plenty of other resources available to power such space-craft and infrastructure. The answer might be to have a stable predictable supply of energy when other energy supplies are low or depleted as the universe continues to expand and evolve over cosmic time scales. The details about the long lived isotopes under items 1)-3) above are given to enable the reader of this posting who is not familiar with the time scales of the half lives of the known longest lived radio-nuclides an appreciation of the wide variety of elements to choose from when contemplating such energy storage “batteries”. The above summary of radio-nuclides is not exhaustive as there are probably other potentially suitably long lived isotopes that can be used as nuclear energy storage batteries.
I have a long day ahead of me and so I will stop here to get some rest.
I plan to be back on sight in a day or so when I have time.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
amy and jim no i do not know her.sorry i did not get around to answering you sooner all the best – jim, thank you for sharing your thoughts i hope to post some new ideas as well pretty soon but the problem is i am sometimes afraid of going off the “deep end” and either posting too much or repeating myself !! still looking for a practical way of creating a traversable worm hole.hey that…would be number one on everybodies hit parade!! lol all the best to all,your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for your latest posting.
Keep up the thinking about and the development of wormhole ideas. There is no harm done, but rather good results from posting ideas related to wormholes. You are very devoted to the concept of wormholes, and very often, such devotion is what it takes to make original cutting edge progress regarding novel physics concepts. Feel free to post more about wormholes whenever you feel ready to do so. I think wormholes are a great topic and are probably as much of an advance over warp drive like concepts as warp drive concepts are an advance over mildly relativistic interstellar space arks powered by nuclear fission rockets. Keep up the good work. Traversable wormholes would indeed be number one on everybodies hit parade!
I thought I would mention some aerospace news that is not directly related to interstrellar flight but which offers a glimpse into some of the baby steps we are taking regarding aerospace propulsion technoogies that when further optimized show promise for allowing us much cheaper, safer, and reliable access to Earth orbit in the near term. In particular, the concept involves planned refined development of a hypersonic cruise missle that the Pentagon has under development that will reach mach 6 or 7 after being accellerated to about mach 4.5 by a rocket engine. Although this may not seem like a big deal and that mach 7 is not nearly fast enough to reach orbital velocity, it represents the first publically known real world application of the form of scramjets which operate on kerosine combustion using oxygen from atmospheric air intake. No doubt that the development of this system will spur the futher refinement of scramjet systems for military and hopefully for practical low cost access to Earth orbit for peaceful purposes. For those who want to read more about this technology, this cruise missle project goes by the name of the X-51A . There is a lot of online literature about this project. I first heard about this project in a paper copy of a news magazine, and a few days ago, read more about it after doing a Google Search on the subject.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim yes these things might not have alot to do with spaceflight,right now but as you say and i am able to extrapolate from – baby steps are necessary before one can learn to run!! and by the way working on ideas visavie wormholes now,hope to post soon to get opinions! “devoted” to this subject for the following reason.space is BIG and the speed of light is the speed limit.therefore we must develop ways of getting around the problem. way number one matter anti matter drives to tool around the solar system. way number two ,warp drive for deep space flight. way number three traversable worm holes for REALLY deep space flight!!! that is it for now hope to be back soon at which time i’ll probably post more ideas on this subject!! i see it that way,solar system,galaxy, beyond (maybe)! thank you very much all your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments.
A few additional concepts for interstellar propulsion occurred to me over the last few years and are as follows.
1) The first concept involves storing mechanical energy in a very large number of nano scale, pico-scale, and even femtometer scale (10 EXP -15 meter) elastic loops of stretched neutronnium wherein the variety of neutronium used would be highly elastic or which would have at least some stretchability. The idea further involves a grid, screen, or other bulk neutronium structure that would have very many positions with which to attach and stretch the neutronium elastic bands. Strain energy levels within the system would be increased or released by stretching the bands or releasing some of the tension within the elastic bamds wherein the stretched bands would be coupled to a means for extracting the strain energy and converting it to useful forms such as nuclear mechanical energy to electrical energy conversion means, nuclear mechanical energy to electromagnetic energy conversion means and the like. The stored nuclear mechanical energy could be released to power electron, ion, photon, neutrino, and/or tachyon (if they exist) rockets; MPHDD, EPHDD, EMPHDD; beamed energy and/or massive particle momentum transfer sailing ships; electrogravatic propulsion, antigravity propulsion, general warp drive, (if such is possible); traversable wormhole production (if we learn how to produce them); macroscopic quantum-mechanical tunneling, macroscopic quantum information teleportation, proposed macroscopic electromagnetic field induced teleportation schemes (if such is possible) etc..
2) The second concept involves using macroscopic elastic bands made of any appropriate forms of any elastic neutronium wherein the neutronium would be wrapped around a spool or other containment means itself being made of appropriate forms of neutronium. Energy release to power the above mentioned spacecraft types would be done in a similar manner to that described above in section 1). Alternatively, some other form of elastic neutronium could be utilized such as neutronium springs that have an incredibly large spring constant wherein the springs would be compressed, stretched, and/or wouned up to provide a means for storing mechanical energy.
The use of solid nuetronium material as an elastic energy storage medium wherein the solid neutronium could store enough energy per unit of energy storage mass to be useful for powering star ships would probably require an mass specific elastic energy storage density at least as high as that of nuclear energy storage material such as fissionable material such as Uranium 235 or other nuclear fission energy fuels or nuclear fusion fuels such as hydrogen isotopes, helium isotopes, lithium deuterium compounds etc.
3) The third concept is basically a two part concept similar to the one described above except that the material of choice is quarkonium which in some forms is expected to have densities several orders of magnitude greater than nuetronium. The strong nuclear force or gluonic fields acting between the material’s constituent quarks would be responsible for providing a means with which to store the strain energy within the stretched quarkonium elastic bands whether or not such bands are ultramicroscopic, microscopic, and/or macroscopic in their physical dimensions. The quarkonium alternatively would be fashioned into springs with an extraordinarily high spring constant wherein the springs would be either compressed or tensioned to provide the energy storage needed to power some or all of the spacecraft types listed under section 1) above. Note that the tension within the quark matter materials would have to be maintained at a low enough level so as not to induce the formation of new quarks out of the stretched quarkonium bands or springs thus resulting in the premature de-tensioning of the quarkonium strain energy storage systems. It is conceivable that such strain energy could be converted into additional quarks to provide mass for matter antimatter annihilation energy producing reactions provided that a source of antimatter quarks was provided along with the matter quarks. The antimatter quarks could conceivably be provided by quarkonium elastic bands and/or springs made of antimatter quarkonium. However, in this case, one might reasonably ask “Why not simply provide a supply of antimatter along with a supply of normal matter from the beginning in some other form rather than going through the trouble of producing the matter and antimatter quarkonium elastic bands and/or springs?”. Note that antimatter quarkonium elastic bands and spring made of the same flavors of quarks as their normal matter quarkonium counterparts may need some form of antimatter backing or support to hold or restrain the antimatter quarkonium bands or springs so as not to cause premature energy release which could be disastrous. Alternatively, the backing or support for the tensioned and/or compressed antimatter quarkonium devices might be made of antimatter quarks of different flavors relative to the antimatter quarkonium energy storage elements thus avoiding the issue of the danger of matter/antimatter annihilations.
Quarkonium elastic bands and/or springs might optionally be composed of any of the proposed and/or possible types of quarkonium such as strange matter quarkonium. Note that the existence of naturally occurring quarkonium has been proposed to take the form of so called quark nuggets on the scale of a meter in diameter with the mass of roughly the same order of magnitude as that for the moon. Also proposed is the existence of naturally occurring clumps of so called strange matter composed at least in part of strange quarks.
Perhaps large meutronium and/or quarkonium elastic energy storage banks could be produced and maintained in order to provide a stable supply of energy for epochs into the cosmically remote future. Such energy storage banks could be periodically resupplied or retensioned so as to provide a stable supply of energy over long periods of time between energy restocking events thus enabling energy supply predictability. The energy to supply these banks could be drawn from the cosmic microwave background radiation, star light, or other primary sources of energy available during specific epochs as the universe evolves.
That’s all for now. I plan to be back on site sometime this evening.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim, wow!!! recall those little planes that would fly by the power of a twisted rubber band! well what you say is like that except scaled up to A HYPER scale!!!!! fantastic! thank you very much your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the encouraging comments.
Some additional concepts for interstellar travel that I would like to mention are as follows.
1) The first concept involves the increase in negative energy and positive energy of various zero point vacuum energy states wherein the magnitude of the negative energy density and the magnitude of the positive energy density still cancel out to almost zero net energy that we commonly observe in the Casimir experiment apparatus. However, instead of simply depolarizing the existing vacuum energy state to produce enormous supplies of positive or negative energy in manners commonly conjectured about by zero point energy enthusiasts, the idea would involve developing methods to dramatically increase the magnitude of the negative energy density as well as the magnitude of the negative energy density’s counterbalancing positive energy density in a local region of space-time followed immediately and/or accompanied simultaneously with vacuum energy state depolarization in such a manner that even more positive and/or negative energy is available from a given region of space-time with depolarized vacuum energy fields. Note that such a bootstrapping process could conceivably be related to phenomenon by which the current zero point energy fields exist in the first place except that the underlying mechanism would be artificially ramped up to enhance the magnitudes of the balanced negative and positive energy fields densities.
Perhaps the magnitudes of negative and positive energy densities can some how be bootstrapped to much higher values of space-time wise energy density to an extent that a net positive energy density of infinity counterbalances a net negative energy density of infinity to produce either a zero or safely small polarized space-time energy density. As a potential result of partial if not full depolarization of such a vacuum energy state, perhaps an infinite amount of positive and/or negative energy can be released from a microscopic volume of space-time within our and/or other universes for unimaginable technological applications including an infinite supply of energy for manned travel over extreme bounding cosmic distances in space and/or time, the artificial production of other universes and/or the augmentation of the space-time and/or matter and energy content within our universe or other existing universes. Such augmentation might conceivably involve increasing the volume of space-time within our universe and/or others, the local or global change in the number of spatial and/or perhaps temporal dimensions within our universe or other universes, and/or the local and or global change in real particle matter and energy density within our and/or other existing universes.
By locally and/or globally increasing the quantity of positive and/or negative energy of our universe and/or others like it, it might be possible to reverse a future runaway expansion (otherwise known as the big rip within our universe or others like it by those who favor the notion that our universe will eventually experience such an expansion based on extrapolations from the current evidence that the rate of expansion of our universe is slowly increasing) or to halt an eventual collapse of our or other similar universes. Thus a state of steady controlled expansion would be maintained to accommodate an ever growing human and extraterrestrial population if it is indeed the choice of mankind and other intelligent species to maintain a growing population.
Zero point energy fields that could conceivably be manipulated in such a manner are those associated with the four known forces of electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, the gravitational force, and, also, perhaps any one or all of the proposed Higg’s fields.
2) As relevant to the second concept I will summarize tonight, instead of depolarizing any one or subset of the vacuum energy fields to extract a large quantity of negative and or positive energy, the vacuum energy fields might be manipulated without any significant relative depolarization of the negative energy and positive energy levels on either a local or global scale to yield enhanced effects such as those related to the Casimir force which could potentially be useful for manned interstellar travel and other industrial applications for human and/or extraterrestrial civilizations for times scales extending far into the cosmic future.
3) The third concept I will summarize involves the use of locally artificially manipulated Higg’s field values somehow to reduce the mass and therefore the inertia of manned interstellar spacecraft so that they can approach C – e more easily wherein the limiting lower boundary of e is vanishingly small. In the limit that the mass of a spacecraft could be reduced to zero, it would take an infinitesimal supply of energy for a spacecraft to approach C – e where the lower limit of e is vanishingly small thus allowing craft to achieve any value of velocity just under C but arbitrarily close to C with an infinitesimal supply of propulsion energy. If special relativistic time dilation would hold up for this altered inertia condition, then a manned spacecraft could conceivably travel any finite distance e.g., even distances much much greater than 10 EXP [10 EXP (10 EXP 100)] or 10 EXP ( 10 raised to the power of a google) well within a normal human generation with respect to the ships reference frame. In the upper limiting value of velocity arbitrarily close approach to C, the reduced inertia craft could travel any finite distance in zero time with respect to the ships reference frame effectively permitting instantaneous transport over cosmic distances with respect to the ships reference frame.
4) The fourth concept I will summarize involves manipulating the Higg’s field to increase the mass of a portion of matter in such as way that its energy equivalence in terms of the equation E= M x (C EXP 2) is increased. In the limiting upper value, the mass of the sample of matter would be increased to such an extent that the mass composing the lump of matter would be converted to a quantity of energy such that a relatively very small initial quantity of mass converted to energy would provide a beam to accelerate an non inertially altered manned spacecraft to achieve extremely relativistic if not extraordinarily relativistic velocities. This would require that the energy of the photons or what ever other particles are used to carry the energy or momentum to the spacecraft would not revert back to the energy level corresponding to an originating lump of matter that has not had its mass artificially increased.
5) The fifth concept involves a combination of the concepts under items 3) and 4) above and involves powering a reduced mass spacecraft with a beamed energy source originating from artificially increased mass for lumps of matter and antimatter which are combined in a controlled manner to produce the beam energy. To easily achieve extremely relativistic velocities for reactionary drive propulsion system manned spacecraft using small lumps of matter and antimatter that have had their mass artificially increased, the requirements of the ability to increase mass of the matter and antimatter supply for the beamed energy and the requirement of being able to decrease the rest mass of the manned spacecraft propelled by the beam would not need to be as rigorously met as may otherwise be required.
Note that the conjectured methods of supplying energy under items 3) and 5) above require that the Higg’s field can actually be manipulated to increase and/or decrease the rest mass of material objects. One plausible mechanism involves artificially ramping up the process by which the Higg’s field naturally imbues massive particles with mass and/or artificially ramping down the same process to increase or/and decrease the rest mass of material objects respectively. To be practical for rest mass increase, more energy would need to be producible from the increased rest mass than the energy requirement to alter the Higg’s field in any such requisite manners to increase the rest mass of the lump of matter to be converted into energy.
Perhaps experiments involved in the possible future discovery of the Higg’s bosons and any eventual control of the production of such Higg’s bosons within the immediate time and space vicinity of the lump of matter for which it is intended to have its mass increased could be key to determining whether or not the rest mass of a material object can be artificially increased. Note that Higg’s bosons are expected to have a half life of somewhere around 10 EXP – 25 seconds thus making them very illusive for direct technological applications in their real particle form(s). The near term reopening of the CERN accelerator might offer the discovery of the Higgs bosons predicted by the Standard Model of Particles and Fields and begin to shed some light on how the Higg’s field(s) might be technologically manipulated for industrial purposes including manned interstellar spaceflight.
Some examples of spacecraft that could be powered from energy sources and production schemes such as those described under items 1) – 5) above include: electron, ion, photon, neutrino, and/or tachyon (if they exist) rockets; MPHDD, EPHDD, EMPHDD systems; beamed energy and/or massive particle momentum transfer sailing ships; electrogravatic propulsion, antigravity propulsion, general warp drive, (if such is possible); traversable wormhole production (if we learn how to produce them); macroscopic quantum-mechanical tunneling, macroscopic quantum information teleportation, proposed macroscopic electromagnetic field induced teleportation schemes (if such is possible) etc..
That’s all for now. I plan to be back on site this evening or early tomorrow morning.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim thank you for these comments but i wish you could make these particular ideas a little more clear. sorry to have to ask but,if you get the chance?! long time ago when i first learned of the zero point field i said,wow,alot of energy must be involved in that – and,it is a part of outer space itself! therefore maybe it could be tapped by a spacecraft for propulsion! “fuel” that would not have to be carried,would be everywhere and would be free! wow! naturally…how to tap it? or should i say,HOW to tap it!! funny thing it might be in your new ideas right under my nose and here i sit looking for clarification! still alot of really bright people here and they might right now be “seeing” your point and working it out now even as i type. i sure hope so.and good to hear from you. your friend george ps, when this above idea first dawned on me i’m afraid i bent alot of peoples ears about it,going for (hopefully) that very result !! ;) g pps glad the subject has re emerged i still find it very exciting. good to see it comming to light again. g
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and questions regarding the zero point energy field concepts that I summarized. For clarification, the zero point energy fields are a result of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. For example, for a particle traveling in a given direction, the uncertainty in its momentum (delta Px) and position (delta X) is expressed by the product of these two values as [delta Px) (delta X)] = h/(4Pi) where h is Planck’s constant. The uncertainty principle is a consequence of the wave like nature of any particle which results in an uncertainty in the above product due to the non precisely definable location of the momentum and position of a particle simultaneously. Another way of expressing the uncertainty principle is [(delta E)(delta t) = h/(4Pi) where delta E is the uncertainty of energy and delta t is the uncertainly of time. Because of the uncertainty principle, a given region of space-time within our universe and any universe like it has vacuum energy fluctuations in the form of what are referred to as virtual particle pair productions by which particles of all known forms continuously come into and out of existence but on time scales to short for us to detect. The net effect of these energy fluctuations is to imbue an otherwise pure vacuum with a slight net energy value which can be detected by certain experimental apparatus such as the Casimir Experiment. Note that the net effect of the zero point vacuum field fluctuations detectable in the Casimir Experiment are those of the electromagnetic force variety. The force resulting from the unbalanced electromagnetic wave fluctuations within the first successful attempt to detect the effect for electromagnetic fields was so small such that other effects had to be ruled out in order to provide strong evidence for this effect. Because of the zero point energy fluctuations, matter as we know it can only be cooled so far before quantum field fluctuations imbue the particles of the sample of matter with oscillatory motions that result from the net effects of the negative and positive energy fluctuations within the zero point energy fields. Over macroscopic time scales and even microscopic time scales accessible by our current technology, the effects of the negative and positive energy zero point energy fluctuations wash out by almost complete cancellation. Were either the positive or negative energy fluctuations become largely un-cancelled, the net effect would be the production of either a positive or negative energy density with a magnitude being roughly 10 EXP 111 times denser in the region of space effected then the total spectral irradiancy within an equal volume of space within the center of the Sun. Note that the temperature within the center of the Sun is roughly 20 million degrees Celsius. If you find the time, please feel free to ask me in particular what about the concepts I summarized yesterday need further clarification. I will be happy to provide a response. I would have posted sooner but I was away all day yesterday on a mini one day vacation out in the Shenandoah National Park.
As I was taking a little hike in the mountains late yesterday afternoon, I was struck by the amount of sunlight falling upon the mountainous terrain and begin to ponder the huge amount of solar power incident upon the Earth of which receives only about 10 EXP -10 of the suns power output. The time averaged total energy output of human civilization is currently roughly equal to only 1/10,000 of the energy from sun light falling upon the Earth which thus is the equivalent of only about 10 EXP – 14 of the solar power output.
I had a strong realization of the incredibly useful power source the Sun could be for powering manned interstellar missions to the thousands of local stellar neighbors within a few dozen light year radius of Earth with physics principles that have been well established for several decades such as photovoltaic technologies, laser beam production, microwave beam production, massive particle beam production, and mass driver technology. Each of these four technologies if ramped up to a very large scale in orbit around the Sun could potentially be used to accelerate manned space ships to highly relativistic velocities thus making manned trips to any of these stars not much longer in duration with respect to the ships reference frame that the currently proposed and planned manned Mars missions using chemical rocket propulsion. As we worked with known physics to reach the stars, we could be working concurrently on more useful propulsion techniques involving zero point energy field manipulation etc.
That’s all for now. I will be back on site later this evening or early tomorrow.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
Thanks for the critique and comments.
I am very pleased with the successful lunch of the space shuttle this evening.
Some additional notions for interstellar travel occurred to me on and off over the last several years which I am sure have been contemplated by others before these notions dawned on me.
1) The first notion has to do with the concept of gravity as formulated by various versions of string theory and involves the notion that the relative strength of gravity compared to the other 3 known forces is very small. One general concept suggested by some string theorists is that the reason the force of gravity is so weak is that almost all of the gravitation from a given mass escapes into adjacent hidden dimensions such as a subset of the extra dimensions proposed by string theory. According to some relatively new theories about our universe, our universe is basically a membrane like structure embedded in higher dimensional space. The force of gravity is accordingly mediated by closed loops or closed strings that are not constrained to a particular limited subset of the dimensions to which strings representing the other 3 known forces are. Accordingly, the strings that represent the quanta of the other 3 forces are open strings wherein the ends of these strings are attached to membranes otherwise known a branes. In essence, these attachments prevent the open strings from being able to freely travel through the higher dimensional space proposed by certain forms of string theory wherein these 3 force mediating quanta exists as open stings embedded in and secured to sub-manifolds in higher dimensional space. Because the closed strings of gravity are free to travel about the higher dimensional space, much of the gravity field originating from a given mass extends into the higher dimensional space in such a manner that the resulting component of gravity felt within our ordinary 4-D Einsteinian space-time has a greatly diminished strength than it would if the strings were constrained within the three dimensions of space that we experience.
Note that the relative strengths of the four known forces where for the purposes of comparing the relative strengths, the strength of the gravitational force has been normalized to one. The relative strengths are by order of magnitude approximation as follows: Strong Nuclear Force, 10 EXP 38; Electromagnetic Force 10 EXP 36; Weak Nuclear Force 10 EXP 25, and Gravity 10 EXP 0 or one.
Note that some of the experiments planned and/or already being undertaken to measure any deviance of the force of gravity on microscopic scales (that we can access) from the inverse square law are intended to study the notion that at least some of these proposed hidden dimensions are compactifed on the length scales over which the attempt to measure deviations in the gravitational constant are made manifest.
Traditional string theory focused much on the concept that these hidden dimensions were so compacted or rolled or folded up to the extent that their radius of curvature was on the scale of the socalled Planck distance or about 10 EXP -35 meters, about 20 orders of magnitude smaller than the apparent cross section of the atomic nucleus. More recent conjecture suggests that the scale of curvature might be on the distance scale for which we can build and test very small versions of experimental apparatus similar to the Cavendish Experiment. Since the gravitational flux on such scales would be stronger than that modeled by the Newtonian inverse square law due to the more highly concentrated flux lines radiating from the microscopic mass samples, any such detected increases in gravitational strength would offer insight and some evidence of the existence of these higher compacted dimensions and the notion that much of the gravitational force from a given mass leaks out into the higher dimensional space. If the Cavendish like experimental setup is able to take measurements on or below the scale of the radius of curvature of the compactified higher dimensional space dimensions, then one would expect that the gravitational force would scale with respect to distance as 1/[r EXP (2 + n)] where n is the number of extra spatial dimensions.
Note that one form of the Cavendish Experiment being developed requires isolation of the test masses and cantilever elements from Casimir Forces that result from zero point electromagnetic force fluctuations and other potential sources of high noise to signal ratios that could obscure any deviations from the inverse square law. Therefore, the apparatus must be exquisitely sensitive and precise.
The point to all of this is that, if indeed much of the gravitational force is leaking out into higher dimensional space, perhaps there is some way to capture this force by either manipulation of the curvature radius of these higher spatial dimensions or an adjacent portion of the radial curvature thereof in order to enhance the strength of the force of gravity acting on an object. If it is the case that such deviations from the inverse square law can be detected on the sub-millimeter scales for which it is being tested, then perhaps insights into using nano-technological intervention within the higher dimensional space might prove useful for enhancing the dynamic effects of gravitational fields on these distance scales for the purposes of providing propulsive force and energy to power manned interstellar spacecraft. One can imagine a whole host of other applications for such a technology.
2) The second concept I would like to summarize involves the notion of changing the strength or density of the Higg’s field relative to various spatial positions in order to produce a macroscopic non zero gradient of the Higgs Field within the location of a spacecraft and/or within an adjacent region of space with respect to a space-craft.
As commonly noted in scientific literature, the Higgs field is proposed by the Standard Model of particles and fields to be the source of mass generation and therefore the source of inertia. Accordingly, because there is no virtually gradient currently detectable within the Higgs field on a macroscopic distance scale, the acceleration of objects by the Higgs field is not observed. However, it has been suggested that if the Higgs field were to some how very in density or strength over a macroscopic region of space within which an object is located, then perhaps an accelerative force would be exerted on an object due to the gradient of the Higgs field. It can therefore be conjectured that any future method or technology developed to unbalance the Higgs field might be useful for manned interstellar travel and a host of other industrial applications.
3) The third concept I will summarize involves the notion that there might be currently completely hidden forms of energy and/or fields associated with some or all of the known particles and the subsets of the 4 known forces that effect them. The concept being proposed here is not the same concept as the proposed existence of super-symmetric particle partners to the known fermions and bosons, the proposed forms of cold dark matter that appears to be the dominant form of gravitationally detectable mass, etc., but rather a fundamental set of physical agents directly associated and coupled to the known particles and forces.
The notion that I am summarizing is that perhaps there is a hidden energy release from some or all of the types of exothermic reactions known to man. Some of the known exothermic reactions are obviously chemical reactions, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, radioactive decay, matter/antimatter annihilation, and nuclear isomer state decays.
If such additional hidden energy releases occur in known exothermic reactions, then perhaps some future method or technology could be useful in capturing these energy releases wherein the excess captured energy could be used in manned interstellar craft propulsion systems. If such energy releases were ultimately found to be by far the dominant energy release in nuclear reactions that take place within the sun but wherein the hidden energy is almost if not completely non-interactive with respect to the currently observed components of mass and energy release from the Sun, then perhaps stars could provide much more energy to power systems for providing energy for manned interstellar transport systems than was previously assumed . Such systems could conceivably include as non-limiting examples: electron, ion, photon, neutrino, and/or tachyon (if they exist) rockets; MPHDD, EPHDD, EMPHDD systems; beamed energy and/or massive particle momentum transfer sailing ships; electrogravatic propulsion, antigravity propulsion, general warp drive, (if such is possible); traversable wormhole production (if we learn how to produce them); macroscopic quantum-mechanical tunneling, macroscopic quantum information teleportation, proposed macroscopic electromagnetic field induced teleportation schemes (if such is possible) etc..
In the event that any hidden components energy release from chemical reactions are found to have an apparent detectable and useable energy value greater than that of the currently observable chemical energy releases, then perhaps the so-called hidden energy could be used to reverse the exothermic processes that led to the total chemical energy release by reassembling the original state of the chemical fuels wherein, effectively, energy is continually creatable for free.
I am really going out on a limb here and make no claim that such energy creation is definitely possible, but in an effort to learn new physics, far out ideas need to be proposed, worked out philosophically and mathematically, perhaps tested and then either refuted or excepted as approximations of yet other more remote theories wherein the approximations can be rigorously studied and perhaps applied to real word engineering of technological systems including manned starships. Note that since we have gone as far as to propose theories that involve the creation of our entire universe from almost nothing in theories involving false vacuum instabilities, the production of the entire universe from a zero point energy fluctuation etc., in what seems to be an ultimate or near ultimate free lunch, I see no reason why the notions described under item 3) above should not at least be reflected upon.
That’s all for now. I plan to be back on site sometime this weekend.
Anyone who has any ideas to share, please feel free to jump in and post them.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim thank you very much for the great explanation! and what you said about solar power most certainly might have many space flight applications! why not? what better energy source than the sun?! put me in mind of dyson spheres also! then as to the rest of your ideas on propulsion for space flight…found them equallty good ! once sent an e mail to brian greene suggesting an idea that i had had at that time regarding the use of string theory in possible propulsion. never got an answer lol can’t think why!!(??) anyhow thank you your friend george ps will try to get back here later today
Hi George;
Thanks for the critical review and comments. The use of Dyson Spheres would be an excellent resource for providing energy for manned interstellar travel and other spacebased infrastructures.
Regarding the space shuttle launch, I saw an two excellent and beautiful photos online that brought to mind the tremendous power generated be even the chemical rockets that power the shuttle. These were a most impressive sight.
It would indeed be nice to take part in future manned operations in space even if only in the role as a common space tourist.
Thanks Very Much!
Your Freind Jim
jim, yes sir these launches are very impressive indeed ! the power generated by “only” chemical rocket fuel CAN be most impressive indeed! just imagine matter/anti-matter reactions!! wow. however more and more power awaits in types of motive force as yet untaped and maybe as yet undiscovered!one thing we do here is look to that very future! don’t have to ask myself twice why it is i hang around! thank you for your dyson sphere comments but i can only repeat,the sun itself! what better source of energy? probably enough there theoretically to power 1,000 starships for a million years! just a wild guess on my part have not done any actual figuring ! but thank you your friend george
jim went back to your cool explanation to have a second look.yes i have heard before that the net energy in any given part of the zero point field might be quite small. but lol to say the very least there is ALOT of space out there.so when you add it up it becomes only a question of how to “harvest” said energy.maybe,do you think? by passing through great volumes of space very quickly the (shall i call it converter?) on high.the “converter” being the as yet undiscovered device aboard the space craft which interacts with the zpf to make use of what energy may be there. inventing that would be the ,as they say challenge! maybe matter/anti-matter would be the very thing to give the ship sufficient push to cover the required volume of space fast enough to get the job done! anyhow…felt obligated to go back and have another look at that great explanation you obviously worked so hard on. i hope between us we have come up with something that may inspire,say,another of our members who may read these words (if we are very lucky that is!).anyhow it goes without saying that alot of us will continue to turn the problem over in our minds.never easy i guess to come up with a new concept.especially when it is comming from pretty uncharted territory in the first place! but again thank you for now and as always…talk with you later.all the best your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critique.
I ran some numbers and had the opportuinity to come up with the following results to clarify just how useful the Sun could be for powering manned interstellar missions involving very large starships.
The energy output of the Sun is the equivalent of the conversion of roughly 4 million tons of mass into energy per second or about 4 x 10 EXP 26 watts. This rate of power output is enough to accellerate a 4 million metric ton spacecraft to about to a velocity of .86 C in one second. It is also enough to accellerate 30 million starships, each starship having a rest mass of 4 million tons, to .86 C in one year, assumming that the energy for propulsion would be used at 100 % effeciency. If only 1/[3 x (10 EXP 7)] of the suns yearly energy output was captured for 100% effeciency in propelling a 4 million metric ton starship, the ship would achieve a velocity after 1 year of .86 C. As another way of looking at it, the power output of the Sun if 25% of it where utilized for 100 pecent effeciency in accelerating a 1,000 metric ton spacecraft would enable the starship is accellerate to about .86 C in 1 millisecond. Talk abour rapid accelleration!! If 33 pecent of the Sun’s ouput could be captured and used with close to 100% effeciency to power reactionary propulsion manned interstellar spacecraft, 10 million star ships could be launched every year and accellerated to a terminal velocity of about .86 C every year for the remainder of the Sun’s next 5 billion years of life. That is about 50 x 10 EXP 15 interstellar missions or 50 quadrillion missions.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
I just needed to clarify one comment about the rest mass of the starships
involved in the 50 quadrillion interstellar missions comment I made in my previosly posting.
If 33 pecent of the Sun’s ouput could be captured and used with close to 100% effeciency to power reactionary propulsion manned interstellar spacecraft, 10 million star ships, each with a rest mass of 4 million metric tons, could be launched every year and accellerated to a terminal velocity of about .86 C every year for the remainder of the Sun’s next 5 billion years of life. That is about 50 x 10 EXP 15 interstellar missions or 50 quadrillion missions. Also, if the rest mass of each ship were a modest 4,000 metric tons, then 10 billion starships could be launched each year wherein the ships would reach a terminal velocity of .86 C. Accordingly, 50 x 10 EXP 18 such ships could be accelerated to a terminal velocity of about .86 C during the future life span of the Sun during which its solar output will remain essentially the same as it is today.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim thank you for your comments and it is obvious yes that the power of the sun would be a MAJOR source of power for these things but that is if and only if we could find a way to harness it for these things and…respectfully my friend…50 quadrillion missions!!!?right now i’d be super happy with 9 or ten !!! hope you are having a really good week end george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critical review.
Some of the numerical examples I gave in my two previous postings, although correct, are a little outlandish, for contemporary time scale purposes, since we have not yet launched even one interstellar mission. Thanks for grounding me in reality. I some times can get overly involved in thinking about what might happen in the far distant future, rather then spending more energy posting comments relevant to real world relatively near term prospects and technologies for manned interstellar travel.
By the way, the latest issue of either Popular Mechanics or Popular Science, I forget which one, has an interesting article regarding research being done to develope sky diving from an altitude of 60 miles and higher, which obviously requires a full pressurized spacesuit, ample supply of oxygen, and adequately temperature resistant materials to manage the 464 degrees F temperature due to friction upon reaching a maximum velocity from free fall of 2,500 MPH from 60 miles. The technology envisions the use of appropriate series of parachutes to slow the diver to eventually allow a safe landing on the ground commensurate with safe normal sky diving landing speeds.
I had a relaxing day down here in Fairfax today. Overall its been a good weekend.
That’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim.
jim lol you can get overly involved!? well buddy look behind you i am right there too! and i’m pretty sure that that skydiving article is in popular mechanics! and… i too had a really good weekend. thanks your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the encouragement. I will continuw to post ideas ranging from near term to far distant future propulsion techniques as I learn more about them and formulate my thoughts and/or summarize others’s thoughts on them. I can well imagine that there is a tremendous wealth of possible propulsion techniques for you, me, and other space enthusiasts to ponder and develope. I only wish I could live hundreds of more years and witness the future developements in physics, cosmology, exobiology, and astronautics. I plan to be back onsite sometime tomorrow.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim,funny you should say that!! only this morning i told someone that i would love to be able to jump a couple of hundred years into the future ala star trek to see how all of this turns out! talk to you later and…formulate away!! :) your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critique.
Some additional concepts occurred to me regarding potential energy sources and energy storage mechanisms for manned interstellar flight.
1) The first idea involves setting up a large series of superconducting coils with very large currents traveling through each coil wherein the current essentially keeps repeating its path through its associated coil in accordance to the theory of superconductor operations. The current in each coil would be restocked by energy input mechanisms as manned interstellar spacecraft racing through the series of coils extracted energy in the form of magnetic field interactions with the coils’ magnetic fields as a result of electromagnets formed by the electrified superconducting coils.
I can imagine a multitude of such series of coils being oriented in orbit around the Sun for favorable trajectories to our interstellar neighbors and also for journeys deep within our galaxy.
Very intense magnetic fields could be used by such apparatus to quickly accelerate manned spacecraft to extremely relativistic velocities over solar system scale distances, and even to higher degrees of relativistic velocities for such systems that extend out into the Kiuper Belt and Oort Cloud.
Possible energy sources for these coils include solar photovoltaic power generation, solar thermal electric power generation, utilization of space based fusion reactors which fuse the light elements found in cometary matter, cosmic microwave background radiation etc.
Some method would be required to keep the superconducting coils in the right orientation which may only be a requirement when the ship passes through the coils for a specific trajectory to a stellar neighbor. Means for orienting the coils for such purposes could include ion or electron rockets, fusion rockets, matter/antimatter rockets, and perhaps even chemical rockets if activated shortly before the arrival of the transiting spacecraft.
If the intensity of the repulsive magnetic field within the spacecraft were increased, the magnetic fields produced by the superconducting coils would not need to be as intense thereby mitigating some of the tendencies of the coils to become misaligned from any orientation suitable for various missions.
2) The second notion involves storing vast quantities of charged matter in very strong vessels, such as those that might be constructed of solid neutronium and perhaps even solid quarkonium. Here, the amount of energy being stored as electrostatic potential would need to be greater than the nuclear energy density found in any known nuclear fusion or nuclear fission fuel in order to be practical. If the size of the vessels made of neutronium or quarkonium could be kept small, then the thickness of the walls of such containers could be minimized thus resulting in higher wall-thickness-specific-energy-storage-density. A one thousand metric ton neutronium storage vessel might have a width in its greatest exterior dimensional extent of only 10 micrometers. A quarkonium storage vessel might be much smaller for the same mass. Such storage vessels with a mass of roughly one thousand metric tons might be useful for propelling starships with masses within the 1,000 to 100,000 metric ton range.
Perhaps more than one form of quarkonium would be workable including normal baryonic quarkonium, strange matter quarkonioum, etc.
3) The third concept involves the storage of extremely compressed matter within the neutronium or quarkonium vessels wherein the stored matter would be electrically neutral but able to store vast quantities of energy as a result of degeneracy pressure resistance to further collapse within the stored and compressed matter. Once again, perhaps huge quantities of potential mechanical energy could be stored within such vessels.
Regarding items 2) and 3) above, more than one compressed matter storage unit could be used on a given ship. Also, the stored mechanical energy may be released gradually in the form of highly pressurized repulsive propellant, or converted to some other form such as electrical energy to power ion, electron, photon, tachyon (if they exist) rockets, warp drive, antigravity propulsion systems, traversable wormhole transit systems, quantum teleportation methods, macroscopically induced quantum mechanical tunneling, some of the proposed electromagnetic teleportation schemes, the artificial production of multiple connectedness of space-time regions within the universe either temporary or permanent, etc. I hope I am not going too much out on a limb here!
That’s all for now.
I will try to post more ideas this weekend if I have time. Things are fairly hectic down here in Fairfax this week. If not this weekend, then hopefully by early this Monday or this Tuesday.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim, good ideas one and all i’m not even going to try to add anything in this go round. except to say i hope everyone here who has any chance at all of planing for these or ideas like them to become reality will sit down and start figuring!!! thank you very much your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the kind words.
I am encouraged by the news reports as of last night that the spacestation repairs and spaceshuttle repairs are going good. It is good to know that as these more or less minor difficulties arise in space, the astronuats on these missions continue to develope the skills sets needed to do real life work in space. If anything, the whole process of assembling the space-station gives NASA, Russia, and all other participants in its construction and staffing increased practical knowledge in orbital construction projects and experience in dealing with routine difficulties arising in space. All of this can help with more ambitious projects such as perhaps eventually constructing manned starships in orbit, hopefully sometime this century. I only hope to, or should I say, would really like to be alive when any announcement of a future analogue of an Apollo scale program would be announced to send humans to one of of stellar neighbors.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
I thought I would encourage anyone who has ideas they want tp post regarding manned interstellar spacetravel or even on interstellar space-probes to feel completely free to post them here. Also, please feel free to comment on any accounts of work being done, theoretical or experimental, on currrent and future manned space travel plans that are available in the open literature. No idea is to small to post, no idea is too big to post. Any manned travel to the outer reaches of our solar system and to our stellar nieghbors is going to be a civilization wide effort, and no effort is to small or too big for such plans to become reality.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim in answer to the first above.yes i agree!have been saying things like that myself for quite a while now!but as to sending or attempting to send humans to one of our stellar neighbours – i think “not anytime soon” but i sure do hope that what i think may be wrong!! then : as to the second posted above. i only want to say YESSS!!!! I sure hope everybody will share their ideas! i would very much want to read about them…lol to say the least! thank you very much jim and to everybody else who’s ideas i may soon be hip deep in,THANKS IN ADVANCE! your friend george
Hi George;
A few more ideas to summarize are as follows.
1) In the recent novel, “A Hole in Texas,” by the well-known author, Herman Wouk, the science fiction concept of the Boson Bomb is described wherein the Boson is the Higgs Boson. The Boson bomb is accordingly much much more powerful then current nuclear weapons, and thus, thank God such weapons are only science fiction curiosities.
However, in the event that such a weapon can ever be developed, perhaps it can be used for peaceful purposes as an energy source in scaled down versions to power interstellar manned spacecraft, perhaps in much the same manner as a buzz bomb. Propulsion systems that might in theory be powered by such a device include ion, electron, photon, tachyon (if they exist) rockets, warp drive, antigravity propulsion systems, traversable wormhole transit systems, quantum teleportation methods, macroscopically induced quantum mechanical tunneling, some of the proposed electromagnetic teleportation schemes, the artificial production of multiple connectedness of space-time regions within the universe either temporary or permanent, etc.
I have no idea as to how a Boson Bomb might be constructed and am only aware of the science fictional accounts of such a device.
2) The second concept I would like to summarize involves the artificial production of a controlled and limited extent phase change within the structure of the vacuum of space-time in much the same way and types as those that have been of occasional concern to particle physicists conducting experiments with large particle accelerators and/or those proposed to have occurred during the decoupling stages of the unified forces during the early instants of the birth of our universe in the Big Bang. A directed energy phase change as such that dies out after a while, or one that spreads substantially in a spherically symmetric explosion of limited duration might be an ideal energy source for the types of propulsions systems mentioned under item 1) above.
One conjectured danger for a previous particle experiment worried to have possibly been able to cause a runaway phase change that would convert normal matter to strange matter throughout the cosmos turned out not to be of any concern at the energy levels for which the accelerator experiments were to be and ultimately were conducted.
These two potential if even only remotely probable technologies might seem dangerous and perhaps they are given the track record of our civilization to weaponise scientific theories and discoveries, however, if they or similar technologies ever become reality, they might offer an excellent opportunity to afford mankind with power sources for large scale manned expeditions to locations deep within our galaxy and perhaps over cosmically remote spatial and temporal distances.
3) The third concept I will summarize is much more down to Earth but potentially much more relevant in the immediate time-frame. I read an article online last night about a concept involving a rocket utilizing chemical fuels for combustion which would gat some of its oxidizer from air in the atmosphere in the form of oxygen to supplement its on board supply of oxidizer and as a result, achieve a specific impulse of about twice that which would be achieved while carrying the entire supply of oxidizer on board. This concept is not the same as the so called scramjets which get their entire supply of oxygen from the atmosphere while operating in scramjet mode, and is even distinct from the concept of a scramjet that switches over to rocket propulsion once the scramjet reaches an altitude where atmospheric oxygen is no longer available. For the air breathing rocket, atmospheric oxygen would be mixed with liquid oxidizers simultaneously to provide the enhanced Isp while the craft was climbing out of the oxygen rich portion of the atmosphere.
This technology offers some promise for affording us lower cost access to Earth orbit and with larger payloads. As such, it might be an excellent technology to enable us to start extensive Earth orbit construction projects including the assembly of large manned planetary spacecraft.
That’s all for now.
I plan to be back on site tomorrow or Saturday.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
yes jim,carl sagan once said that to use nuclear weapons to power a star ship (he was speaking of orion at the time)was the best use of which he could think for them! i agree.also as far back as the development of the first nuclear weapons,people worried about “runaway reactions!” bet you five cents it won’t happen! and finally ,i too have read about using the air itself as oxydyzer at least in part.cool idea! i do like it. thank you your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the critical review and comments.
It is nice to read the news articles on the safe return of the shuttle. Its an expensive piece of technology to operate without a perfect safety record, but its been a real work-horse. It almost makes me feel that the space shuttle should be redesigned with new safety features and higher performance materials and perhaps with greater payload capacity upon which a dozen or so vehicles would be constucted for use and backup. This would no doubt be expensive, however, it is an Earth Orbit access system we might be able to have ready in five to ten years with little or no ambiguity as to whether or not it would function. Concurrently, other lower cost and more exotic craft to reach Earth orbit could be in the works as the first redesigned space shuttles began service.
Thanks;
Jim
jim incredible you should say so,i just mentioned to somebody else how i saw the atlantis land about an hour ago and how beautiful it looked! i would really rather not have to go back to the old capsule idea after 2010 ! we SHOULD build more new shuttles and then really go for some cool missions,like building big space craft in orbit for exploration even further out (like the discovery in the movie 2001),to have a close look at mars,jupiter and saturn and many of their more interesting moons.a tall order yes! but it would also take a long time and if we used that time to “hold our nose to the grindstone” maybe our first star ship could find realization alot sooner than we currently suppose.also…i saw them talking on tv about the troubles connected with going from a long period of weightlessness back to the 1g of earth.so i’ll say this too – we have to find a way to provide artificial gravity of some kind by some means!lol as many of you know by now,i “don’t ask for much”!!but still thank you one and all and it is so good to have atlantis and her crew safely back! your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the encouragement. Great comments also. I only hope some folks at NASA and/or other executive levels of the government will take notice of ideas like the ones you and I expressed in the previuos two postings and make manned interplanetary travel a reality reasonably soon and then hopefully develop a starship sooner than is anticipated by much of the science fiction movies and literature.
To every one who reads this website, feel free to post your thoughts. Hopefully we are beginning a new era of eventually having human spaceflight to locations where we have never been before and where permanent outposts such as that planned for the Moon and beyond starting by about 2020 will be established.
Encourage interest in space by discussing your ideas on the subject with your families, co-workers, fellow students, relatives etc. What ever your occupations, no idea is to small or to big to post.
Our civilization’s reaching out into space can be an occasion to unite all of humanity under a common goal as such and in wonderment and awe of the vast reaches of our universe. We can dream about what we might be able to find out there, or we can make it happen.
Who knows, if at some point in the cosmically remote future we feel that we have explored our 4-D Einstienian spacetime adequately, met and established relationships with other kindred races and civilizations out there, perhaps we will just go on exploring, perhaps hyperspace as a following fromtier. Who knows, there might be an infinite number of new frontiers to explore, and in only begining the long journey of such discovery, in doing so, our far distant future decendents may just by chance, look back on us contemporary space travel enthusiasts, scientists, engineers, policy makers, and yes, space travelers for helping to unite humanity in space travel and through it, fostering an era of peace, economic prosperity, scientific, technological and cultural achievements, thus allowing themselves a chance to live in a wonderful cosmos rather than perhaps never having had the chance to exist because mankind ended it self in some trivial, hot tempered conflict, involving the currently still enourmously destructive nuclear arsenal mantained by the current global powers and/or through other hot tempered WMD usage.
In short, you, the readership, can make a difference. Get involved in posting, space travel education, and other forms of advocacy for manned space travel: no idea is too small or to big to discuss. If you can think it, then you can find a way to express it. This online forum is a good starting point.
Thanks;
To you George and every to one else who reads this site.
Your Friend Jim.
jim i just read what you posted above and all i can say to you and the other people here is that – I AGREE 101% ! thank you and regards to all your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the encouragement and comments.
I had a few more ideas to post that I am sure have been circulating since long before my time that involve the concepts of using radio-thermal electrical power generators or another concept involving direct conversion of the kinetic energy of charged radioactive decay products to electrical energy to power manned starships.
1) The first concept involves using radio-thermal generators wherein the initial radioactive isotopic fuel decays to another radioactive isotope which in turn decays to another radioactive isotope perhaps etc., wherein the decay sequence is chosen to maximize total decay chain energy release and also to provide a more constant source of heat for radio-thermal generators.
Alternatively, the radioactive isotope chosen could be one with only one or at most two decay sequence products wherein the radioactive decays are of a greater mass specific energy release i.e., for those wherein a greater portion of the mass is converted to energy for the first and/or second events in the decay sequence.
2) Another method would involve utilizing a mixture of radioactive fuels wherein each fuel has a different half life and decay energy release in order to tailor the energy release to more uniform and constant power output over the duration of the flight.
3) The third concept involves including one or more radioactive fuels with the right sequence of decay products and the inclusion of classical (word not used in the classical mechanics sense) nuclear fissionable fuels such as those that are used in nuclear fission electrical power generation reactors and in nuclear weapons wherein the fission fuels would gradually release decay products within a mixture of isotopes usable in radio-thermal decay generators for purposes of perturbing the radioactive isotopic radio-thermal fuels atoms in such a manner that radioactive decays or nuclear transformations of the radio-thermal fuels atoms to either elements with a higher or lower atomic number or isotopes with either a higher of lower number of atomic mass units are created in such a manner that the end results of radio-thermal decay sequences used to power the radio-thermal generators is to yield the most mass converted to energy wherein the stability of the time averaged uniformity of the radio-thermal power production is optionally optimized for effective manned space-flight to our nearest stellar neighbors.
4) The fourth concept is broadly similar to the first three concepts mentioned above except that the mode of power generation involves the direct conversion of the kinetic energy of the electrically charged decay products into electrical power. For such electrical energy generation apparatus, the efficiency of energy capture and conversion relative to the decay energy releases would be optimized for decay sequences yielding more of their energy releases in the form of alpha decays, beta decays, and other charged particle products.
5) The fifth concept is a hybrid of radio-thermal decay electrical energy generation processes and direct radio-electric electrical energy generating processes. These two distinct electrical energy generation mechanisms can be either co-located in one or more dual mode units or separated wherein both forms energy generation operate simultaneously or intermittently with respect to each other with optional transfer of radioactive fuel back and forth between these two types of generators to optimize energy harnessing at different times during the overall decay processes.
The power produced by these systems can be used to drive electron, proton, or ion drive rockets or other forms of electrical propulsion. For decay sequences with net energy releases approaching that of nuclear fission and perhaps fusion, long duration human voyages to our nearest stellar neighbors that take a generation or two, and even longer manned flights to further out stars become possible. In the event that the human life span becomes significantly medically lengthened, manned travel to stars perhaps within a hundred or so light years distance from Earth (of which there are many thousands) become possible with such craft of very large size. Note however that to achieve relativistic velocities the fuel to payload radio of the craft would need to be high as is the case for nuclear fission or nuclear fusion powered craft. Also, shielding from radiation would need to be provided.
That’s all for now;
Your Friend Jim
jim,thank you.i am a true beliver that there are many “older” ideas that may still hold more than just a kernal of truth in them.and if somebody here reads what you wrote and has am aha!! moment then you will have done a great thing. thank you very much your friend george
Hi George:
Thanks for the comments. Its good to be back onsite.
A few more interstellar transport ideas occurred to me, oddly enough, just as I was about to log on to the site.
1) The first concept involves a cosmic engineering research and development and construction project involving the construction of parallel huge membranous sheets that carry an electric charge, one sheet being negatively charged and the other sheet being positively charged wherein the sheets are located at a distance of tens of billions of light years apart from each other. The idea involves setting up an electric field between the two sheets wherein the potential difference between the two sheets would be tremendous even if the potential difference between two points located a meter apart and on a line perpendicular to the two sheets was very small. This potential difference could be utilized by electrically charged space ships to travel to various locations within the cosmos by reactive force between the charged space craft and the electric field gradients between the two sheets. For very large potential drops over small distances between the two sheets, that is, very high values for the ratio volts/meter or V/m , the electric charge of the spacecraft could be relatively small. For very small values of V/m, the electric charge of the spacecraft would need to be relatively high. Note that the spacecraft could be negatively charged to travel towards the positively charged sheet or positively charged to travel towards the negatively charged sheet. To travel net distances along lines of travel parallel two the two sheets, the spacecraft could travel a zig-zag path wherein each leg of the travel path is at an oblique angle between the two sheets.
The two sheets could be so constructed at an appropriate distance such that the expansion of space time between the two sheets due to the cosmic space-time expansion balances the tendency of the sheets to be pulled toward each other by the relative attractive coloumbic potential between the two sheets. Alternatively, the sheets can be separated at a relative distance and wherein an appropriate relative charge is maintained between them so that the sheets are allowed to drift apart due to cosmic expansion perhaps at substantially the same rate as the rate of increase in space-time growth between the two sheets.
Even for very low values of V/m, tremendously high relativistic velocities are possible with very highly charged spacecraft.
Note that the mass specific electrical charge values of the charged cosmic plates can be optimized through the use of appropriate materials of construction including perhaps materials that mankind has not yet invented or conceived of. Perhaps the use of a grid like structure for the charged plates can be utilized to increase the mass specific area of the charged plates so that the quantity of material required to construct the plates is minimized. Alternatively, a series of separated charged elements may be maintained in a planar like configuration to approximate a large continuous monolithic sheet or a continuous grid.
Note that at least some method is required to stabilize the separation of the two membranous charged plates from the attractive effects imposed by the electric field between the two plates. Also, some mechanism is required to keep the plates charged and free of electrical charge collection from charged particles located between the plates and/or charge particles located just exterior to the charged plates to such an extent required for the plates to maintain an appropriate and functional electric charge.
2) The second concept I will discuss involves a magnetic field analogue of the first concept wherein the membranous sheets would be magnetic sheets or sheets composed of magnetized materials wherein the inside surface of one sheet would be of a South Pole magnetic field orientation while the inside surface of the opposing sheet would be of a North Pole magnetic field orientation. Interstellar or intergalactic manned space craft with appropriately controlled and oriented magnetic fields would react against the magnetic field within the magnetized plates to achieve highly relativistic velocities.
Once again, the distance between the plates, and the magnetic flux per unit of area of the plates, can be adjusted to optimal values to optimize the effectiveness and stability of the plates to take into account the space-time expansion resulting from the Big Bang expansion of our Universe. Also, the magnetized sheets may be of a continuous porous grid or mesh or be composed of a precisely controlled planar array of discreet magnetized units, some thing that would be hard to accomplish and would require special features to adjust the orientation of the discreet magnets as they tended to realign themselves by virtue of the magnets interaction with each other.
3) The third concept involves using two magnetic sheets wherein the magnetic fields thus provided are produced essentially out of electromagnets. Once again, the distance between the plates, and the magnetic flux per unit of area of the plates, can be adjusted to optimal values to optimize the effectiveness and stability of the plates to take into account the space-time expansion resulting form the Big Bang expansion of our Universe. Also, the electromagnet sheets may optionally be of a continuous porous grid or mesh or be composed of a precisely controlled planar array of discreet electromagnet units, some thing that would be hard to accomplish and would require special features to adjust the orientation of the discreet electromagnets as they tended to realign themselves by virtue of the electromagnets interaction with each other.
The magnetic flux strength of the sheets can be adjusted by adjusting the amount of current flowing through some or all of the electromagnet elements comprising each magnetic plate. The use of superconducting material(s0 in the composition of the current carrying elements within the electromagnetic sheets can be used to minimize energy loss. Since metallic hydrogen in some of its proposed forms may be highly conducting if not superconducting and since hydrogen appears to be the dominant form of baryonic matter within our universe, it might be the best material out of which to manufacture the electromagnetic coils composing each of the electromagnet sheets.
A supply of energy would be required to provide power to the electromagnets, even in the case of the superconducting electromagnets because energy may or would leak out of the superconducting electromagnets as they magneto-mechanically interacted with other electromagnets and other material and objects within the range of electromagnetic or electrodynamic interaction of the electromagnets. Perhaps the power supply could ultimately come from the CMBR or starlight or perhaps even from zero point energy fluctuations within the vacuum of space.
4) The fourth concepts involves utilizing combinations of any two or all three of the above concepts for increased versatility and functionality.
Note that which ever of the concepts described above would be considered, membrane surface shapes need not necessarily be planar. Other geometric contours might be more appropriate for specific portions of the sheets or fro the entire sheets based on the era of cosmic evolution for which the apparatus would be intended to operate, the density of matter at various eras in future cosmic evolution, the availability of specific construction materials for the sheets, etc. Also, such huge construction projects are not likely to occur for a very very long time even if they turn out to be feasible from a theoretical, computational, and logistics standpoint.
That’s all for tonight. I will be back onsite tomorrow.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim