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.
jim thank you for your ideas and yes you are right large construction projects in space are not unfortunately right around the corner!! look at just all the time and trouble it is taking just to complete the iss ! however at least it seems they have scheduled the next shuttle launch for 8-7. hope all goes well. your friend george
Hi George;
I thought that I would mention an excellent ABC Online News article about the launch aboard a Russian Rocket of Bigelow Aerospace’s Inflatable Space Station module which at 350 cubic meters of indoor space is as large as the inside of a small family house. The article is featured along with several photo’s, one picture of which was taken of the interior of the inflated orbiting module.
The module is made from a thick pliable wall that I believe comprises either a very thick Kevlar fiber fabric or a thick layer of Arimid Graphite composite fabric. I think the fabric is actually well over one inch thick from what I have read about it in the past.
Bigelow plans to add additional inflatable modules to the inflatable space station over the next few years to increase its living space and laboratory work space. This is indeed great progress for the aerospace industry.
Bigelow’s work is an excellent baby-step stepping stone to a potentially grand future of humanity as we begin to step out into the cosmos.
Also, in the latest issue of Science News, an effective method has been developed to produce a fuel ultimately derived from sugars. It is now easily producible from sugars by the new method and has at least 40% greater heating value than alcohol, a fact that makes it at least as energy storage dense as gasoline. Before the fuel would go into mass production, it is mentioned that environmental impact studies will be needed to access any toxicity of the fuel, and that of its production and combustion, processes and bi-products respectfully. This fuel might make an excellent rocket fuel when combusted with LOX and/or atmospheric oxygen thus offering a completely renewable fuel source for chemical rocket and/or scramjet access to low Earth orbit.
Thanks;
Jim
jim this is really exciting news of great strides in space which are actually just for once right around the corner!! would it not be very strange if after all the hassle to finish the iss – it suddenly becomes beside the point!? wow.thank you very much george
Hi George;
Thanks for the critique and comments.
A few more manned interstellar travel system ideas came to mind as I was having a relaxing weekend which the general reader may find of interest and/or of value. Some of these newly posted concepts are simply elaborations on concepts I previously summarized, all of which I make no claim to be the originator, since I feel that at least most of the concepts summarized below were probably pondered before I was even born.
1a) The first idea is a rather old concept for which I am not the originator and involves the production and storage of vast quantities of single magnetic pole particles that were the subject of lots of conjecture during the last quarter of the 20th Century. The idea that I am summarizing essentially entails producing magnetic monopoles and storing them in such a manner that the single pole magnetic field originating from the proposed aggregate of particles would be used to pull a spacecraft along the direction of a galaxies magnetic field lines toward the direction of the galaxy’s opposite magnetic pole relative to the magnetic charge of the monopole field. Such a system could potentially be used to ply the depth of intergalactic space or anywhere where magnetic fields exist.
One can see that storing a large number of monopoles could result in a hugely intense unipolar magnetic field.
The lower mass limit of monopoles based on experimental methods which have not yet led to their detection is 600 GeV/(C EXP 2) while the upper mass limit based on the sensitivity of certain cosmological theories is 10 EXP 17 GeV/(C EXP 2).
A very elementary reason but by no means the most sophisticated reason of why monopoles might exist is related to the principle of symmetry between magnetic fields and electric fields. Since there is such a thing as a unipolar electric field such as one associated with an electron, perhaps there should likewise exist a particle with a unipolar magnetic field. Note that based on the sensitivities of modern theories of particles and fields and negative experimental results, the above predicted range for the probable rest mass of the monopole is inferred, and due to this proposed range for its rest mass, it is no wonder why it has not yet been experimentally confirmed by its would be production in accelerator experiments. In general, the higher the rest mass of a particle to be created , the higher the accelerated precursor particles’ kinetic energy of collision is required to produce the particle.
1b) An alternate system might include electrically charged elements for net electric charging of the spacecraft and/or attached cables such that the Lorenz force acting on the electrically charged system could be used to steer the spacecraft giving it an additional degree of freedom to move about the galaxy and/or intergalactic space thus affording greater trajectory control.
Karl Schroeder is I believe the originator of the Lorenz force aspect of this concept utilized in what he refers to as a stellar cycler. He proposes using very long highly electrically charged wires attached to and extending out from a relativistic spacecraft wherein the charged wires would interact with the interstellar magnetic field in order to steer the spacecraft in a continuous loop that extends over interstellar distances. Accordingly, the space craft would simply continue going around in circulinear paths on loop distance scales on the order of several light years. I find Karl’s idea quite ingenious.
1c) Alternatively, the monopoles might be separated in batches wherein the interaction between certain batches is screened by a unipolar magnetic field impermeable or unipolar magnetic field low permeable barrier similar or at least analogous to the bipolar magnetic field impermeable materials such as superconductors. Small batches of monopoles could become unscreened with respect to each other wherein one batch would be fired out the back of the ship as a reaction mass while the inner batch would in time also be used as one of the reaction mass batches in a sequence of reaction mass batch repulsions. All this assumes however that some type of magnetic field screening mechanism can be developed which would permit a greater quantity of stored potential energy usable for thrust than would be possible without the screening.
1d) Another concept involves the notion of a monopole rocket wherein the single pole charged particles would be fired down the inside of a solenoidal electromagnet and used as a reaction mass in an analogous way that ions in ion rockets are thrusted out of an acceleration chamber by an electric field. Alternatively, a series of immediately inter linked cylindrical toroidal magnets (such as the ones that are commonly used in domestic households having holes in the middle) may of help in accelerating the magnetic monopoles as a reaction mass.
2a) Another main concept involves somehow using what are referred to as X Bosons which are theoretical particles, as of yet undetected, that may mediate the coupling between the electroweak force and the strong nuclear force. Perhaps a field of real X Bosons could somehow be manipulated to provide a nuclear force like intensity of force-field to propel a spacecraft (leptons, nucleons, etc. composition in all) with an acceleration value similar to that experienced by nucleons being forced together to undergo nuclear fusion by the strong nuclear force, for example protons in nuclear fusion reactions overcoming the coloumbic force barrier imposed by their like electric charge and then being accelerated very rapidly, almost instantly to form heavier nuclei. The notion I am getting at here is the potential production of a force field with intra-nucleonic like intensity that operates over infinite ranges, as do the electromagnetic and gravitational force (although these are of actually practically finite range given the finite age of our universe).
2b) A similar additional option to consider is the more direct manipulation of the X Boson portion of the zero point vacuum energy field fluctuations in such a manner similar to which the electric field and the magnetic field, and the strong nuclear force fields are mediated by virtual photons and virtual gluons in quantum field theory respectively. However, it might be difficult to manipulate the X Boson vacuum field fluctuations in an artificial manner to an extent usable for very rapid spacecraft acceleration.
3) Yet another concept involves some how using the electromagnetic aspect of the electroweak unification to cause stable particles and/or nuclei to undergo sudden decay in situations where such decays would be very improbable over a given time period. The idea here would be to induce any macroscopic sample of ordinary nuclei to undergo sudden radioactive decay thus permitting almost any form of ordinary material here on Earth or anywhere else in the cosmos to be used as “nuclear fuel” for powering spacecraft. One option for such would entail scooping up interstellar hydrogen, helium, etc., and simply causing these nuclei to decay simply by exposing these nuclei to some form of pulsed, modulated, or otherwise patterned electromagnetic fields.
A spacecraft able to be powered by such means might simply land on a planet, take up a load of soil, rock, water and/or other liquid, wherein the mass of this fuel load would be several times greater than the mass of the empty craft, after which the craft would lift off and accelerate to potentially highly relativistic velocities thereby permitting easy access for mankind to all of our stellar neighbors, and for multigenerational ships, potential access to any portion of the milky way galaxy.
Implicit in any of the ideas mentioned above is the notion that such propulsion systems would be better than others with respect to the energy available for propulsion, feasibility, practicality, and other economic measures. In item number 3), it would make no sense to use electromagnetic fields to induce nuclear radioactive decay of any materials unless the resultant energy release was considerably greater than the energy required to generate any requisite phased, pulsed, modulated, or otherwise patterned electromagnetic fields.
Note that I made reference to concepts similar to those under items 2a), 2b), and 3 in previous postings however, I thought that different ways of explaining these concepts might prove interesting, entertaining and/or otherwise useful to the general readership of this site. Some additional details were added in this posting to clarify certain concepts summarized in some of my previous postings.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
thanks jim for sharing all of those ideas.you really go into this subject with great interest and attempt to leave no stone unturned! even when i don’t always have alot to say,i do admire that! and i wish alot more people felt as you do! might bring the stars closer sooner! your friend george
Hi George;
I just read an article posted on the novac (Northern Virginia Astronomy Club) website about a large presumably gas giant type planet called HD 18933b, more than 60 light-years away, that bears evidence of having water in its atmosphere. Researchers think the the planet probably has an atmospheric temperature of around 700 degress C and so most probably would not support any form of life as we know it.
This is interesting news nonetheless because it is just another piece of evidence validating the existence of a very wide variety of planets throughout our universe. One can only imagine the huge number of possible life forms that may have evolved on the large number of planets within our universe.
As someone who believes in God, it is interesting to contemplate the potentially huge and wide varieties of supernatural vocations and graces that may be available to any existent extraterrestrial intellegences.
All of the recent news of other planets being discovered has instilled ever more curiosity in me regarding the potential for mankind to travel to and visit these worlds and where ETI’s may be present, to enter into cooperative relations in the form of economic, diplomatic, scientific, technological, and cultural agreements with them. Hopefully, even if not in our lifetimes, the age of Star Trek will soon be upon us.
Thanks;
Jim Essig
yes jim it is good that so many people are interested in space! but i fear the age of star trek is not over close! i think all of us half expect aliens to be discovered “any day now” lol ! sure hope so. thank you george
Hi George;
I am looking forward to the launch of the space-shuttle early next month. I hope things go well for them. I saw a report on the news this week about a new astronuat that has flight experience in 30 different aircraft. He seems like an extremely talented guy and should prove to be a great asset to NASA.
Thanks;
Jim Essig
hi jim, i agree 100% with all you said above and …LONG TIME no hear from!!!! heard that the mars rovers “may fall silent” but… what of it aren’t they like 500 times beyond what we expected from them already!!?? now is the time for thoughts of manned misions! we can sure hope! thankyou george
Hi George;
A few more ideas occurred to me over the past few days regarding possible technologies for facilitating manned interstellar travel.
1a) The first idea involves the concept of wireless power transfer via a phenomenon known as resonant coupling which is similar to magnetic inductive coupling. In resonant coupling, a powered magnetic field generator generates a resonating magnetic field which then induces a resonating current in a conducting coil having the same resonant frequency. A team at MIT was recently reported in Technology Review as having placed two coils about 60 cm in diameter and about 2 meters apart, each coil having a resonant frequency of 10 Megahertz, wherein a fluctuating magnetic field generated by one coil induced a current in the other coil sufficient to light a 60 watt light-bulb with a power transmission efficiency of about 45 percent. There are plans to eventually market this technology for systems needing wireless recharging capability such as certain computers, cell phones, and other similar devices. Apparently, the fluctuating magnetic field does no harm to biological systems such as persons located in or near the intervening space between the coils. One can read about this fascinating research in MIT’s Technology Review in an article posted on the internet and dated Friday June 08, 2007
The point that I am trying to make is that this type of system might be useful for transmitting power to remote spacecraft or between remotely located spacecraft. I am not sure how far energy can be transmitted using such a system, but I think resonant coil frequency will prove to be a factor in real world engineered systems for power transmission infrastructure.
1b) Perhaps very low to incredibly low frequency systems such as those described above can be constructed around the solar system, local stellar group, the milky way galaxy, the local galactic super-cluster, or near the edge of the observable universe to take advantage any natural magnetic field resonances within these systems wherein the electric current induced in one such remotely located electrified coil would induce another distant coil to become electrified etc. thereby creating a planetary, stellar, galactic, or local cosmic power relay system which could be used to power space craft of a wide variety propulsion systems that might in theory 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.
Note that stars and galaxies possess magnetic fields and magnetic fields pervade intergalactic space, even in the voids between galactic super clusters, and so building such elements of infrastructure that take advantage of the time averaged periodic fluctuations within these natural systems might be an excellent way to collect energy from within the otherwise near total vacuum of the interstellar and intergalactic medium.
Such “coils” could be made from thin conductive membranous elements such as from high strength conductive carbon nano-tubes, some sort of superconducting materials, perhaps even a proposed form of superconducting neutronium.
A major hurdle that would need to be overcome involves the ability to perform planetary, stellar scale, galactic scale, and cosmic scale engineering R&D and construction projects in order to build power transmission systems on these respective scales. In the extreme case of cosmic engineering and construction, such power systems might not be available for billions if not trillions of years, but it does not hurt to start thinking about such sooner rather than later if only for the present sake of whimsicality.
2a) The third concept summarized involves using a higher dimensional analogue of this technology to beam magneto dynamic energy into other hidden and/or higher dimensions for reception by coils located within these hidden or higher dimensions to power other dimensioned located spacecraft (in some versions, perhaps more appropriately called hyper-space-craft) or other elements of infrastructure located in these other dimensions. Some such other dimensions might be the higher dimensional space proposed in the various forms of string theory, meta-theory, and the theory of branes, or perhaps some versions of relatively flat higher dimensional space such as those proposed according to theories involving general higher dimensional space or hyperspace (which was a popular notion during the late 1970’s) for contemplating what might lie outside the ordinary, possibly overall curved, 4-dimensional space-time of our currently observable universe.
2b) The fourth concept summarized involves using an infrastructure of coils, some located in higher dimensional space and some located in ordinary 4-D Einsteinian space wherein magnetodynamic energy would be transmitted through higher dimensional space as a short cut to reach very remotely located space craft or other elements of infrastructure perhaps located at cosmic distances in space and/or time. If magnetic energy could some how be directed into the proposed compactified 6 or 7 higher dimensions in string theory, it might not have very far to travel to get to a location that is cosmically remote in space and/or time within ordinary 4-D Einsteinian spacetime within our universe.
A major issue with the concepts summarized in sections 2a and 2b above is how to get the magnetic energy into these other dimensions and transmit it through the higher dimensional space without it becoming too diffuse, taking any unanticipated alternate form(s) based perhaps on the above higher dimensional space , preventing the energy from becoming lost and/or absorbed within the higher dimensional space etc.
3) The fifth concept summarized is done so in a very brief and general manner and involves applying any other possible force or field analogues in ways similar to that described in sections 1a through 2b. I am not sure what these other analogues would be, but given the existence of the four known forces, the various proposed Higgs fields, and the proposed super symmetric counter parts to the; photon, weak force bosons, gluons, and the proposed graviton, perhaps there is a lot of territory here for theorists, experimentalists, and inventors to ponder during the next several thousand to millions of years into the future.
That’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim, you know i think that your futuristic concepts above are probably very valuable and my “gut reaction” is that studies of ideas like these might not be even quite as difficult as some others i’ve read about,thought about …even here. to know that good old MIT already has a “finger in the pie” is very encouraging! keep up the good work! your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critical review of my previous posting. I agree with you 100 %. A lot of the ideas I summarize including those in my previous posting, especially those under items 1a and 1b might be doable with todays technological concepts and scientific knowledge. For the larger more extensive versions of the proposed technologies, a very large space manufacturing infrastructure would be necessary, but hopefully we will start heading in that direction as effective single stage to orbit, scram jets, and other forms of quick turnaround time and low cost access to Earth orbit and free Solar orbit is achieved.
I think the detailed study of traversable wormholes is much harder and perhaps necessarilly much more rigorous that any detailed study of any of the comments I have previously outlined.
Keep tinkering with the wormhole ideas! You could be the one who comes up with a real breakthrough here. I wonder just how many qualitatively different types of wormholes are possible, even through just ordinary 4-D Einsteinian spacetime. All of the spacetime warps stuff and wormhole stuff is definately worthy of your further persuit.
By the way, I did read an online article about the Mars rover you commented about a few postings ago lasting well beyond its projected life. That is pretty darn amazing! My youngest sister once remarked at how seemingly ironic it is that the robotic Mars missions and other robotic missions throughout the solar system have arrived safely to their destinations while simply taking the form of a projectile for months or in some cases years on end.
I will be reviewing the online literature about upcomming planetary missions and discoveries during the next day or so and will let you know if I find anything of particular interest. Either way, I will plan to be back on site sometime tomorrow.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
I just thought that I would mention a typo I made in my previous posting. In the third line of the second paragraph, I accidently wrote the word “comments”. I meant to use the word “concepts” instead and apologize for any misunderstanding of the content of that paragraph as posted.
I will be back on site again later today.
Thanks Again;
Your Friend Jim
jim thanks for the above ideas and commentary as you know and eveyone else will have infered by now i do continue to try to come up with ideas on warp drive and wormholes!!! everybody else: feel free to jump in! your friend george
Hi George;
Its good to be back on site
Another interstellar travel idea occurred to me over the past few days as follows.
The idea involves the notion of the construction of a huge space habitat torus or similar shaped ring that is perhaps the diameter of a galaxy if not larger. This idea involves spinning up the ring to the point where its centripetal acceleration is counter balanced by its self gravitation. If the mass of the ring where almost equal to the mass of a blackhole of the same diameter, then the rotational velocity induced centripetal acceleration would have to be just about equal to its escape velocity which would be very close to the speed of light. If the ring where set spinning at a rotational velocity of close to but less than the speed of light, the ring might make an excellent launch platform for small to very large relativistic space craft. The closer the ring’s rotational velocity to C, the faster the launch velocity of the spacecraft. The space craft could be boosted away from the ring by various forms of propulsion including but not limited to ion, electron, photon, tachyon (if they exist) rockets, warp drive, and antigravity propulsion systems. Note that some form of mechanism would be required for the exiting spacecraft to overcome the rings escape velocity. Where the escape velocity of the ring approaches C, some extremely highly energetic propulsion system would be required on any craft exiting the ring’s environment or sphere of gravitational influence.
There are multiple difficult problems that would need to be overcome in the construction of such a ring.
First, there is the problem of building the ring and rotating it with sufficient velocity as it is being constructed so that it does not collapse, become uncontrollably deformed, or fly apart. The ring would probably need to be constructed so that would be diametrically spanning locations or rotational elements of the ring would have a center of gravity located within the middle or center of the ring. Perhaps the ring might be uniformly constructed at every position along its circumference while the mass of each of its differential circumferential elements is gradually increased while at the same time, the rotational velocity of the ring is increased as its mass increases.
Alternatively, the ring might be constructed at spaced rotationally bound locations wherein the circumferential sections of the ring would be extended to meet their adjacent counterparts while the rotational velocity of the overall assemblage of orbiting sections about the rotational center of the would be ring is increased as the total mass of the system of rotational elements and/or the mass of some or all of the rotational elements under construction is increased.
The rotational elements might each be kept substantially the same length while the ring is under construction or otherwise placed in an organized repeating pattern for rotational stability.
Secondly, there is the problem of acquiring the huge amount of kinetic energy required to rotate the ring especially upon its completion. Perhaps if intergalactic starlight, CMBR, or intergalactic hydrogen and helium for fusion fuel could be collected over a several to many billions of years time frame, the required amount of kinetic energy could be obtained. Alternatively, the energy could be beamed from remote locations or perhaps somehow acquired from the zero point vacuum energy fields. The energy might even be harvested from any existent other parallel dimensions in space or from higher dimensional space.
Thirdly, there is the problem of keeping the ring from developing unwanted oscillatory distorted motions by gravitational interaction with matter and/or energy from the surrounding regions of space. The sources of potential destabilizing effects might be other galaxies, intergalactic starlight flux inhomogeneities, CMBR inhomogeneities, and the like.
Fourthly, the ring would need to have a thickness to diameter aspect ratio small enough so that is would not fly apart or collapse at least in part as a result of tidal forces induced by its own self gravitation combined with its rotational acceleration. The ring might need to be constructed of very very strong materials to prevent this from happening.
Fifth, there is the problem of preventing objects from colliding with the ring or rubbing against it through gravitational attraction such as other stellar or galactic bodies, unwanted interstellar gas and dust particles, and other cosmic debris. Perhaps some of this in falling material could be converted to energy to maintain the rings velocity, slow it down slightly, or speed it up as necessary.
Sixth, there would need to exist a way of preventing the ring from acquiring to much kinetic energy and/or mass in order to prevent it from becoming a black hole. Also, if the ring attracts and pulls in toward itself too much matter and/or energy, it could collapse into a black hole hole killing all of its residents. Some method of preventing the excessive attraction of dark matter such as cold dark matter, warm dark matter, or hot dark matter would need to be worked out and implemented for the same reasons.
If these and other problems in the construction and maintenance of the ring could be resolved, then perhaps several or even a large number of such rings could be constructed over tens of billions if not trillions of years. If they could be spun up and maintained at a rotational velocity of C – e, where e approaches zero arbitrarily close but does not ever equal zero, then perhaps a system of such rings can fling and recover powered spacecraft from other such rings located at intergalactic distances while at the same time serving at special relativistic reference frame and general relativistic reference frame time dilators based on the ultra relativistic rotational velocity of the rings and their near black hole gravitational field. Perhaps human life can be relativistically extended to trillions if not quadrillions of years habitat reference frame relative to the overall background “stationary” cosmic reference frame. This might enable the residents of such habitats or systems of observe the evolution of the cosmos over cosmic time frames. I think such would be outstanding.
That’s all for now. I will be back on site some time this weekend.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim,well,yes,a massive,lol ,make that…MASSIVE construction project no doubt requiring technology of at the very least the distant future ! makes a dyson sphere look like a tinker toy by comparrison! i wonder if a project like that has ever been tried before by any truly ADVANCED alien species.but if it had would we not be aware of something that massive!? but,maybe no. even as i typed it occured to me that “is an ant crawling up the side of the empire state building aware of the empire state building!?” probably not. also the little matter of the escape velocity of C ! a job for an alien species millions of years in advance of our own or,us, in millions of years from now ! no kidding my friend ! it might take aliens on a par with those described by ac clarke in the 2001 series to begin to seriously consider such a project. or… lol…a bunch of people like us here with intelligence and imaginations!! thanks for sharing those concepts my friend. george
Hi George;
I read an interesting online article about possible manned missions to the asteroids for potential exploitation of their mineral content for spacebased infrastructure and in support of mannned missions further out into the “cosmos”. Accordingly, the asteriods contain both common and exotic minerals relative to those found on the surface of the Earth. I am thinking that perhaps some of the asteroids contain sizable deposits of uranium ore which could be utilized for effecient nuclear fission powered space arks for manned missions to our stellar nieghbors. Any how, now that NASA is really seriously starting to consider funding for manned travel to and exploitation of the asteroids in addition to NASAs stated plans to go back to the moon and then on to Mars, things should start to really get interesting. The article I read is currently posted on the aol.com news items menu.
As both George and I like to say, any one else, please feel free to jump in and offer your critique and other comments. No comments are to trivial or too deep to be posted on this blog site. We are headed for some interesting times as we begin as a race and a civilization to make plans to leave our Earthen cradle and venture out into the great unknown. The effort to do such involves all of humanity and each one of our voices is important and counts.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim funny i was just about to say,in that same vein that i had taken part minutes ago in an on line poll : how important is it for humans to return to deep space? very was 65% (where i voted).then what do you think of using the asteroids as stepping stones? i like it got 62%, again where i voted. the human race must in my opinion visit everywhere we can in our solar system,evenyually. but,GOOD TO SEE such INTEREST in space comming back!!! my god,like the old days! really cool thank you everyone and what do YOU think!? your friend george
Hi George;
I am encouraged by the sucesssful launch and docking mission of the Russian Progress 61 spacecraft to the International Space Station. These Russian rockets are real work horses and are reliable to the extent that no one seems to take much notice of these launches any more. If we can develope and field a quick turnaround, low cost, many times resusable manned space vehicle with equal or greater reliability, great things will begin to happen in terms of construction projects based in Earth orbit. This could fairly quickly open up the solar system for manned space exploration.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim read what you said above and agree 101% just hope we do get to a reliable fast turnaround vehicle ! we badly need to have the ability to build large space craft in orbit… of earth… the moon ….mars !!!!! because they won’t build a huge space craft and then launch that from cape kennedy!! unless lol they lash about 35 saturn boosters together!!!! just kidding naturally.but the fact that the progress gets so little notice is indeed a very good thing.shows we are moving in the right direction.like my friend on star trek,does anybody notice that there is a starbase 242? no it just is and they take it for granted! the way it will have to be before we have real honest to pete space exploration! i sometimes joke but about that i am very serious. thank you one and all your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and encouraging words.
The sucessful launch of the space shuttle today was an inspiring event amidst the unpleasently hot temperatures that have gripped much of the Eastern United States over the past several days.
I was watching the nightly news this evening as they did a segment on the launch of the spaceshuttle in real time. They showed what appeared to be either a CAD drawing of the future form of the International Space Station or an actual photograph of it and it was quite impressive. It is getting so large that every time I notice a diagram or photo of it, it seems a little unfimiliar due to the ungoing construction work. I guess at the very least, the project is allowing the development of an astronuat corp, both within NASA and from among foriegn juristictions, having valuable skill sets for doing spacebased construction. In short, my first reaction when I saw the picture of the ISS was, “Man, that station is going to be huge!”, even though afterward, I thought “Well, it won’t be all that large”.
It is good to see continued progress reports of activities within the astronuatics community in what is seemingly becomming an almost dailly occurance in routine public news forums.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim yes it is good to see the constant progress in space and when the iss is completed i look forward to the advent of some real attention being paid to the moon mars and beyond piece of the pie !!! maybe even more! thank you very much. george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments.
I spent part of this evening reading portions of the latest issues of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science. There is a nice article featuring the next 50 years in space wherein the author proposed specific time frames for; sending humans back to the moon, starting a moon base, going to Mars, and then starting a Martian colony. This article included a table on one page listing the various major private enterprize players in the hopefully soon to come space tourism industry but mainly listed plans for various companies to start sub-orbital space tourism flights within a few years. Overall, this was a very exciting article to read.
I would recommend this article to any space enthusiasts. The artistic renditions of the various planetary spacecraft, Lunar and Martian bases are well done and colorful.
I would like to see a similar article in one of these two publications about the hypothetical developments in manned spaceflight during the second half of the 21st Century.
jim you are 100% right in your estimation of this article – i just wish you would give more details,like,what where the dates?? then,manned spaceflight in the second half of the 21st century,i too would very much like to see this article! hope somebody writes it real soon!! might have some bearing on the beyond part of the moon mars and beyond program.right now i’m betting on at a minimum a manned flyby of jupiter and a couple of its moons in the 2075 – 2095 time frame.but for now to come back to earth no pun intended.i’d be happy to see a return to the moon,an asteroid mission or two, naturally a mars mission and so forth.i hope that i and we here in fact are doing some good in all those directions simply by “beating the drum for them” and letting anyone who reads here know that yes there is indeed an interest! thank you very much your friend george ps i look forward to alot of good discussion with everybody again next week. :) george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critical review of my previous posting.
A few more ideas occurred to me regarding interstellar travel methods as follows.
1) The first idea involves using a line or column of plasma as a space-based conduit for conducting very high power levels of electrical current wherein the plasma would act as a conductor to conduct electrical energy resulting from a very high potential difference between a spacecraft at one end of the plasma line and a means for providing a reference potential relative to the spacecraft at the other end of the plasma line.
If the plasma line could be maintained over macroscopic time periods commensurate with the time length period of the ship’s acceleration and/or deceleration, and enough power could be transmitted down the line, perhaps the ship could reach relativistic velocities. For example, if 10 EXP 15 Watts could be transmitted down the plasma line for a period of 1 year, then a starship with propulsion systems efficiency of about 33% could reach a kinetic energy of roughly (10 EXP 15)(3x 10 EXP 7)/3 = 10 EXP 22 Joules. This is the equivalent of about 100 metric tons converted into energy. As a result, a spacecraft powered by such a method with a rest mass of 100 metric tons would achieve a relativistic time dilation factor after one year of 2 and a velocity of about .86 C. After 10 years of such a continuous power input, the craft would reach a time dilation factor of about 10 thus permitting the craft to visit any star within a 300 light year radius of Earth during one contemporary generation of a typical human family ship’s time. There are tens of thousands of such stars thus permitting lots of real estate and/or civilizations to be prospected and/or encountered using such a craft.
One might be able to produce such a plasma line by unreeling a carbon nanotube line having a diameter of about one nanometer and then vaporizing it as it is unreeled. A cubic meter of such carbon nanotube material that is compactly wound would have a length of approximately (10 EXP 9)EXP 2 meters or about one hundred light years while at the same time having a mass of only about a few metric tons.
The energy source to electrically energize the plasma line would optionally come from the other end of plasma line or the origin of the space mission or it possibly could be supplied by stations located periodically along the travel route of the space craft.
In order for enough electrical energy to be sent along the plasma line, the potential difference between the ship and the plasma lines power source would need to be high enough to ensure a workable system. Also, a great enough density of the current carrying plasma would be required so that the individual plasma charged particles would not be required to have unmanageable kinetic energy gains. Also, a means or method of keeping the plasma line strait or other wise organized would be required as well as a means for keeping it continuous or unbroken so as to permit continuous current thru-put.
2) The second idea involves the notion of generating a potential difference or electric field around the immediate vicinity of a spacecraft such that the structure of the space-time vacuum near the spacecraft permeated by the electric field breaks down with a huge release of energy that hopefully would not be catastrophic to the spacecraft. I once read that the intensity of an electric field theoretically required to cause this to happen is, not precisely, but very roughly 10 EXP 55 Volts/meter. The electric charge concentration required to produce such an intense electric field is stupendous and not likely to be producible or confinable for a macroscopic electric field of the above intensity for a very long time. If this vacuum structure breakdown energy could be harnessed, and converted into ship based kinetic energy, then the spacecraft could conceivably essentially reach C in virtually an instant, perhaps even during a time period not far removed from the so called Planck time unit of 10 EXP – 43 second. That would be fantastic.
The ability to produce such a high electric field without aggregating and concentrating so much electric charge might be doable by some how superposing electromagnetic waves in terms of the phase of the waves electric fields. Perhaps doing such using low frequency electromagnetic fields such as radio frequency or perhaps even extremely low frequency electromagnet radiation would permit a continuous electric field of the required intensity to be generated over a large enough volume in front of the spacecraft. Perhaps the wave energy could be beamed from multiple, perhaps numerous, locations wherein the energy would converge in front of or near the spacecraft. The electromagnetic energy might even be some how drawn in from adjacent parallel dimensional space and/or higher dimensional space even before we would or could obtain the technology to travel into these other dimensions. In any case, great care would need to be taken so that the craft would not be destroyed in the process of space-time structure breakdown and resulting huge energy release as well as in preventing a run away phase change in the vacuum energy state within our universe which could potentially destroy the particles, laws of nature, physical constants, and the order of the dimensionality of our universe, in short, the destruction of every thing in our universe.
3) The third concept is similar to the second concept except that a magnetic field is used to produce the space time structure breakdown. I once read that a magnetic field on the order of 10 EXP 45 Tesla to 10 EXP 50 Tesla would be required to cause this to happen. The only ways I can think of to generate such a high magnetic field are to use an electromagnet composed of current carrying loops of so called cosmic string material which according to some theories would be superconducting or by superposing the magnetic field components of low frequency or extremely low frequency electromagnetic waves beamed from multiple if not numerous distant locations. Perhaps these waves could be beamed in from parallel dimensions and/or higher dimensional space as suggested in the case of the electric field analogue mentioned in 2) above.
Note that the production of macroscopic electric of magnetic fields of such intensity would probably have to be done by methods that would somehow prevent the energy stored within such fields from simply forming a black hole as a result of these field’s mass/energy or mattergy density. I am not sure how this could be accomplished. How ever, if such a space craft as described in sections 2) and 3) above could some how be accelerated away from the would be black hole before it forms or envelops the space craft, then these methods might have a prayer’s chance of working. I imagine that such acceleration away from such a region might require superluminal travel or some breakdown in the equations of special and/or general relativity for spacecraft undergoing such rapid acceleration and or achieving the required speed to leave the vicinity of the forming and/or growing black hole.
That’s all for now.
I hope to be back on site by mid week.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim,nothing but good ideas anywhere this morning!! good start to the week!! ideas 2 and 3 above put me in mind of the one i keep beating the drum for – the use of the zpf for propulsion! only just a matter of time before somebodies advanced propulsion idea actually both gets accepted AND works!! look forward to seeing more posts in the near future from you and anybody else who’d like to do a little typing of a given day. your friend one and all, george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and encouraging words. I agree 100% with your emphasis on using the zero point field(s) for propulsion. Since the zpf are ubiquitous throughout the universe, we might as well learn how to harness them.
It seems as though the shuttle astronuats may get the opportuinity to do a little repair work on the space shuttle regarding the damaged tile. In a way, I almost hope they will need to do the repairs under the condition, of course, that the shuttle is then later able to return to Earth safely without incident. This would be a good testemant to our growing ability to work in space, more specifically, to perform vital repair operations on manned Earth to orbit space craft. Either way, I certainly hope the shuttle returns home safely and in one piece.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim yes the zpf is very important and something i have been hocking about for quite awhile now! and… yes i agree that if we find ourselves in the position of being able to find problems and fix them in space then in a strange way we have benefited! if and only if all goes well and the ship is INDEED repaired and returns 100% safely !! my guess right now is that we will see some kind of a repair mission soon in the current mission. thank you george
hello jim and everybody, i have been thinking and talking with afew people on line about the following and thought it was high time i mentioned it here,for what it may be worth : saw a quote by freeman dyson in a book i own where he says that there may be alien civilizations that are billions of years old and have reached the point where they can move stars around etc. ! (imagine THAT technology),well at about this point i recalled carl sagan in cosmos making mention of irregular galaxies.so to me at least,it logically follows that at least some irregular galaxies may be “a work in progress” or advanced aliens “remodeling” their galaxy lol rather in the spirit of “will build to suit”!! incredible thought, no!?? …and… i would like to ad – think of it this way. even the most intelligent people back in the days of ancient greece and rome – what would they say about the space shuttle mars rovers the current mission to pluto etc etc and are WE not in the same boat as compared to the above mentioned advanced aliens!!?? look at “just” our technological progress since the 60’s a period of some 47 years or so and then compare that to what might be done in a couple of BILLION years!!? again my friends,incredible thought,no!? well anyhow i’ll be glad to hear any or all comments my friends and i hope you are all having an outstanding day, george
Hi George;
Thanks for the great comments.
I can only ponder with amazement and awe what sort of technologies ETI civilizations might have developed over billions of years. Afterall, in less than 1 century we went from Newtonian Mechanics, through Quantum Mechanics, Special and General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory, The Standard Model of Particles and Fields, Supersymmetry, String Theory, Metatheory, Brane Theory, etc.
Since most of the mass of our universe (or our Big Bang) seems to be in the form of Cold Dark Matter, I wonder if their are any civilizations on any Cold Dark Matter planets around CDM stars that we may have so far been unable to detect. Perhaps as we learn more experimentally and theoretically about CDM physics, we will someday be able to apply this knowledge to our interstellar or intergalactic manned spaceship propulsion systems and other infrastructure, perhaps even on the scale of galactic and even cosmic engineering research and development and construction projects.
Once again George, Great ideas!! I am truely inspired by your ability to think “out of the box”.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
Regarding cold dark matter, I would think that if we learn how to move bodies with the mass of a star, then we should be able to learn how to move stellar mass CDM bodies as well. Once we learn how to aggregate many solar masses worth of CDM at a single location or distributed over a relatively localized region, we should be able to use CDM as a scaffolding to attract normal baryonic matter which if collected in an appropriate fashion, might be used to create stars, star clusters, galaxies of normal stars, and perhaps even super-clusters of normal galaxies.
It is perhaps possible that using or collecting relatively small amounts of CDM might serve as seeds for the further gravitational attraction based aggregation of yet more CDM and so on in a process that perhaps starts with simply the initial collection of a stellar, solar, or even a large planetary massed lump of CDM. Using computational methods similar to finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, and/or other engineering/physics numerical packages, we could determine exactly where to construct and/or place the seed lumps so that the CDM scaffolding can start to grow and attract normal baryonic matter for the production of stars, galaxies, and perhaps even galaxy super clusters over billions of years of scaffolding/cosmic evolution.
Another concept that I would like to mention involves somehow using heavier elements of the appropriate type and/or CDM to modulate the energy output of solar mass type stars in order to slow down their rate of internal fusion so that they last longer as a means of providing sunlight to power civilizations through time periods of perhaps 10 EXP 16 or even 10 EXP 17 years per star based civilization. If the fusion rate of red dwarf stars could be reduced by one or two orders of magnitude, then figures like this might actually be achievable.
Note that being able to lengthen the fusion producing lifetime of stars would require that the stars internal temperature would not drop so low so as to cause the star to undergo catastrophic collapse and also that fusion would actually remain sustainable at such low temperatures. To achieve the latter, perhaps certain species of CDM or some other particle could be introduced to catalyze the nuclear fusion process at lower temperatures yet in such a manner that the fusion process would not produce so much energy so as to defeat the purpose of providing a reduced energy output for the associated stars.
I once read a book about the physics of the Sun whereby the possibility of exotic particle species based modulation of the solar energy output might be occurring.. However this book’s comment was made in reference to the apparent lack of solar neutrino output level required by current models of stellar nucleo-synthesis/fusion processes according to modern theories of stellar evolution and fusion processes. The problem appears to have been solved by the discovery that neutrino’s have mass as a consequence of their oscillations back and forth in terms of form of neutrino these solar neutrinos take as they travel through space. The oscillatory behavior is the consequence of the temporal evolution of the quantum mechanical wave-packets that define the neutrinos thus resulting in the changes of neutrino species which is theoretically associated with the form of the wave-packets defining these particles.
It should be noted that fusion catalysis at relatively cool temperatures can occur, for example, the so-called muon catalyzed reactions that are being investigated by some researchers as potential operating principles for future fusion reactors. Even though the half life of non-relativistic muons is on the order of a microsecond, perhaps there are some stable or metastable CDM particles that could function in a similar manner.
The point to this discussion about slowing down the fusion rate of stars is simply to identify a potential means for powering human and ETI civilizations very long into the cosmic future. This assumes that such technology is not already a capability of certain ETI civilizations and who am I to say how much more advanced they are compared to us, that is, as you say George, some ETI civilizations might be so advanced that we would not even recognize or understand their technology if we happen to meet them at some point in the future.
That’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim, also… just read and commented on a star with a comet like tail which was written up on another part of this site. this star is obviously moving unusually fast.my comment – well then maybe it is being moved ! funny i just mentioned aliens so advanced that they might be able to do things like that!! i really wonder! thank you george
Hi George;
Thanks for the update.
I read an online news article about that same star about a day or so ago. Very intriquing comments. Also, I thought the photo of the star looked really cool. I never know what I am going to read regarding astronomy news. It just keeps getting more and more interesting every day.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
yes indeed…better every day i agree!! george
hello all,had afew minutes free again today,especially since this is saturday so i came back to have a look at the site and see what might have come up.do you know what is wrong theoretically with this site?it is only onething AND nothing is really wrong at all.the one thing i’m rather clumsily trying to get to is only this…there is such AN EMBARRESSMENT of riches here that it would be difficult to say the least for an one person to stay “on top” of it all.almost too many smart people giving highly respectable opinions!! heck people i’d have to be 3 guys to do it all justice! well everybody,keep right on i’ll follow it “all” as best i can for one person. respectfully,your friend, george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments. There is so many concepts being developed for interstellar manned travel that I often feel overwehlmed upon doing on line searches for websites and papers regarding these matters.
I was thinking about the concept of gravity assists after you made a previous posting regarding the potential abilities of ETI technologies to move stars around. It occurred to me that if we could only learn how to produce huge blackholes out of CDM in regions of intergalactic space where normal baryonic matter is much less prevalent, then perhaps a means of producing huge blackholes without any potential dangerous accredition of normal matter falling into the blackholes resulting in super hot plasma and very intense radiation in the vacinity of such blackholes might be developed.
I can imagine a whole linear or curvilinear disposition of many such blackholes whereby a star ship, potentially even starships with the mass of a planetary moon if not that of a planet itself, could recieve a series relativistic gravitational assists as the ships traveled from one such blackhole onto the next one and so on whereby after numerous such passes, the star ship would be traveling at just under C, perhaps C-e wherein e becomes vanishingly small compared to C thus allowing manned space travel in huge planetary massed ships over distances of millions if not billions or even tens of billions of lightyears during an ordinary human familial generation with respect to the ships reference frame.
Given the potential time of the billions of years required for such cosmic construction projects, many different such series or curvelinear placements of black holes could be put in place thus allowing for local interstellar travel as well as travel on the distance scales of the observable universe or what will be the observable universe billions if not tens of billions of years into the future.
Perhaps the ships’ flight paths could be designed so that the relative geometric positions or the aspect ratios of the curvelinear paths of the black hole placement patterns could be gradually adjusted by the gravitational interactions between the black holes and the huge space craft making missions back and forth along the various series of the blackholes. Thus the relative postions of such blackholes in the respective black hole “tracks” might be maintained in a more stable configuration than they would be otherwise.
One might reasonably and most probably prudently ask the question, “Why bother going through such trouble to create so many huge blackholes instead of simply using some much more effective method of travel such as wormhole travel or other forms of exotic travel conjectured about or perhaps developed before we would even be able to even finish such a huge construction project?” To this question, I do not have a good answer. I can only say that as civilizations now and in the future (including human civilization) develop and refine interstellar and intergalactic transportation systems that are sustainable over billions or more years, both we as humans and our ETI niegbors should probably leave no stones un-turned.
That’s all for now. I hope these ideas are not too wacky. I will be back on site tonight with some additional ideas once I formulate my thoughts on them.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
i’ll look forward to hearing them thank you jim. also i dare say,once again owing to the fact that space is such a BIG place : alot of intelligent socities have been working on leaving no stone unturned for a really long time already! but creating such a humongous series of black holes!? i do NOT say that it’s a bad idea but… there must be a gazillion other possibilites that ,respectfully,just might be alot easier! like,and apologies if i hock my own ideas overmuch – traversable worm holes,warp drive,and or propulsion derived from the zpf ! as i wrote the above especially the part about traversable worm holes it crossed my mind what a tragedy it is that we no longer have carl sagan among us!! what a thinker the man was! i own both a tape of the movie contact and the book and the dvd’s of cosmos and the book and thank god (something i really don’t deserve), a snail mail he once sent me from cornell in response to an idea i once had and wrote him about .great respects to all of you who i consider good friends, george
Hi George;
Thanks for the critical review and comments regarding my previous posting. I think you are right on about the gazillion other possibilites that, respectfully, just might be a lot easier. Manufacturing black holes such as the ones I described in my previous posting would seem so labor intensive that I don’t see how even any ETI civilizations would or could go that route. Warp drive, wormholes, and the zpf make a whole lot more sense. I can some times get a little far off in my conjectures and so I thank you and other folks like yourself
for grounding me in reality and practicality at times.
I had some additional ideas regarding some extreme examples of electromagnetic waves that might somehow be relevant or useful for manned interstellar travel concepts although I am not quite sure how these concepts would be applied for such.
1) The first concept involves the acceleration back and fourth of a tremendous concentration of electric charge contained within a continuous super dense piece of matter such that the electromagnetic radiation emitted in lobe like toroidal patterns spreading out from the oscillating charge would have super intense electric field and magnetic field components wherein the electric field and magnetic field amplitudes of the radiating waves near the source would be extraordinarily large and yet appear as one wave per lobe pattern rather than a superposition of several to numerous waves that would yield a similar result. If the oscillating lump of electrically charged matter was dense enough such that it appeared as a single particle like charge rather than appearing as a moving lump composed of electrons or protons, I wonder if there would be manifest some profound but not yet discovered properties of macroscopic extent electromagnetic waves which could some how be used to power spacecraft and/or profoundly alter the structure of space-time at locations near the oscillator.
The concentration of charge I am proposing is tremendous at about the equivalent 10 EXP 20 to 10 EXP 30 coulombs or about 10 EXP 5 to 10 EXP 15 metric tons electrons compressed into a volume of about 0.1 cubic millimeters to 1 cubic meter respectively yet without the charged lump of matter annihilating itself due to its own expansive internal coulombic forces. This level of density would approach that of solid neutronium. The total internal force acting within the 1 cubic meter case could be approximated as two lumps of {1/ [(4 pi)( epsilon naught)(r squared)]} [ 0.25 x 10 EXP 60 (coulombs squared)] ~ 10 EXP 72 Newtons ~ 10 EXP 68 metric tons according to the overly simplistic inverse square law (for this case) of two point charges.
2) Perhaps one might consider black holes formed by aggregating pure electrons or pure protons wherein the black holes would have a mass of about 10 EXP 21 metric tons which is of the same order of magnitude as the mass of the Earth. Presumably, the diameter of such a black hole would be about 1 centimeter as it would be for a black hole of the same mass as the Earth but composed of neutral matter provided that the electric charge of the pure electron or proton composed black hole would some how be collected without compressing the charged matter which would require so much energy that the energy input based of the force required to compress the pure electric charged matter to produce the black hole would be many times greater than the mattergy available within the observable universe in the form of real particles. Basically, by trying the compress the matter by squeezing it, the energy input would be so great so as to form a black hole with a radius many times greater than that of the observable universe. The amount of expansive or outward pressures would be so great that even ordinary solid neutronium or solid quarkonium would fly apart while attempting to contain such forces.
Since black holes are defined simply by their electric charge, mass, and spin, would such a system act as one gigantic fundamental particle with perhaps quantum particle effects exhibited on current macroscopic scales?
Perhaps the matter could be collected by teleporting numerous smaller pieces of matter into one location or somehow causing numerous smaller pieces of such charged matter to somehow macroscopically tunnel into the same small volume of space by some how manipulating the quantum mechanics of tunneling on an macroscopic scale.
I am not sure that such fanciful manipulation of matter such as described above makes any sense, rather it is a high level or general toy model approach to thinking about the production of simple continuous electromagnetic waves of almost unimaginably high E-field and B-field amplitudes from a classically very simple system. Perhaps depending on the frequency and distance over which the dense charge moves, the resulting electromagnetic waves would simply result in the formation of black holes because the energy density of such electromagnetic waves could be orders of magnitude greater than that required to form a black hole.
It would be interesting if some ETI races and perhaps the human race could in the future somehow test these conjectures with real experimental set ups. The magnitude of such experiments seems so far removed from present human and presumably present ETI technologies that it seems that no one individual or group within our 13.7 billion year old universe could have performed such experiments yet. Perhaps we could perform experiments to test similar concepts where the amount of electric charge and mass density, although very high, is not nearly as high as that proposed above.
Other similar configurations would be interesting to test in an attempt to produce other types of super intense wave forms such as cylindrical wave fronts, and linearly, elliptically, and/or circularly polarized single simple “photons” or plane waves or a series of such wherein the electromagnetic radiation could be either incoherent or coherent and/or polarized.
I wonder if the electromagnetic radiation as such in the form of single super intense photons would be qualitatively different from a superposition of photons and/or longer wavelength electromagnetic waves of ordinary wavelengths and energies experienced in common everyday life and research. The common analytic and/or numerical techniques of the concept of the superposition of electromagnetic waves as superposed harmonic functions would at first suggest that there would be little or no difference. But I wonder if by chance, some fundamentally new physics could be discovered if such experiments as described above could be performed.
That’s all for now. I will plan to be back on site in a day or so if not sooner.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim thank you not bad ideas at all heck my friend anything we might be able to tap into as a large energy source without a doubt might easily be a good consideration for space craft drives. what we need most is to keep trying until we eventually “stike pay dirt” !! as they used to say. problem is we’ll have to settle down to try to seriously develop one or two someday.can’t do everything. but you know what would be a great help?! if we ever have a chance to communicate with advanced aliens and find out what they did and how they did it!! that my friend would be as they say,an education! well jim – and everybody else – keep those ideas comming i’d love to read them and heck you never know… the BIG ONE might be as close as the next posting! respectfully to one and all your friend george
Hi George
Thanks for responding to my previous postings. To “strike pay dirt” would be awesome not only just figuratively, but literally with the discovery and mining of rare isotopes in the solar system and beyond and perhaps even some as yet to be discovered isotopes and/or stable super heavy elements with potentially novel chemical and/or nuclear properties.
Some ideas on the possibility of quantum mechanically induced tunneling as a means of providing interstellar and/or intergalactic manned space travel have occurred to me from time to time that I am sure were thought of by others before me but which nonetheless seems like good material to summarize.
1) The first concept involves inducing the quantum mechanical tunneling of large macroscopic objects such as large spaceships over macroscopic distances, perhaps even over cosmic distances in space and/or time, by squeezing the shape of the probabilistic wave function that defines the distribution of the probability of finding the space ship at a given location until the great majority of the normalized probability distribution for the space ship is located billions if not trillions of light years away in such a manner that the spaceship has a probability P of being located at that distant location of 1 – e where e is made to be very small, perhaps even vanishingly small, but positive.
Perhaps altering the shape or distribution of the surroundings of the spaceship before it makes a quantum leap in just the right time dependent or perhaps even time independent manner (or at least approximately so) can facilitate the tailoring of such wave functions. One might consider how arranging the material objects and/or bulk matter surrounding the space craft before it could make a leap could facilitate the quantum leaping process.
Alternatively, one might consider the arrangement of various patterns and strengths of electric, magnetic, and/or electromagnetic fields perhaps optionally in conjunction with the arrangements of sold material objects and/or solid bulk matter in the manner suggested above.
One might even try altering the electromagnetic properties of space such as the electrical permittivity constant and the magnetic permeability constants of free space. Perhaps this could be done by arranging various conductive, probably preferably superconductive materials around the space ship to enclose it or at least partial enclose it thereby effectively blocking the formation of standing zero point electromagnetic waves of certain wavelengths as determined by the mechanism similar to that of the Casimer experiments. If it turns out to be possible to perform macroscopic tunneling through the general principles and conjectures discussed above, then perhaps it may even be possible to use gravity waves to tailor the probability distribution of the wave function for such space craft tunneling in a similar manner.
Now I know of no practical methodology about how one would use such systems and methods to induce quantum mechanical tunneling, but perhaps the trick is in the precise arrangement of the environment within and/or external to the space craft. It may be the case that we could experiment with billions if not trillions of arrangements as a representative statistical sample of the possible qualitative geometric forms (time varying and/or approximately time independent) of physical environmental arrangements to obtain an approximate sample of the total possible number or arrangements and yet come no where close to being able to cause the tunneling to occur because there are at least as many possible arrangements as there are possible quantum mechanical states within the confines of the vicinity of the space craft and only a tiny fraction of such quantum mechanical states would actually result in the tunneling of the space craft as desired. Super fine adjustment might be required to the environment and it might be the case that the particular temporal sequence or temporal shape of the succession of quantum mechanical states has to occur before the tunneling would take place thus leading to an ensemble order of magnitude more configurations that would need to be tested if the testing where done by randomly varying the ships environment . Note that given a big enough number spaceships and/or enough time, one and/or both of these quantities being astronomical, ordinary quantum mechanics suggest that such a tunneling event would occur for at least one of the space craft by virtue of the theoretically infinite extent of the trailing portions of the wave functions that define the probabilistic location of the spaceship. The idea is to determine how if possible to facilitate such quantum events on a much shorter time scale.
2) Another option is to enable the spacecraft to make numerous successive quantum mechanical jumps wherein the spacecraft would jump only a small if not microscopic distance in each jump. I would imagine that for such jumps, the environmental engineering in the vicinity of the spacecraft would not nearly need to be as rigorous as that for the cosmic quantum jumps over cosmic distances. There may be many more orders of magnitude ways to facilitate these small jumps for the spaceship than there is for the cosmic distance jumps and I highly suspect that this is the case if such is possible so therefore it might be easier to accomplish each individual jump for small microscopic jumps than it is to do it all in one shot.
3) Yet another option might be to facilitate quantum leaps over very large distances, or perhaps small distances through higher dimensional space (for the case of string theories and brane theories involving the notion of highly compactified higher hidden dimensions of space), and/or parallel spatial dimensions to distant space-time locations within our universe wherein the higher and/or parallel spatial dimensions serve as a short cut through which the tunneling takes place thereby greatly shorting the distance that the space craft has to tunnel compared to the distance required without such “hyper-spatial” shortcuts for tunneling. It might even be possible to manipulate the local higher and/or parallel dimensional space surrounding the spacecraft to facilitate appropriate manipulation the space craft wave function for quantum mechanical tunneling without the space craft ever entering the higher and/or parallel dimensional space nor tunneling through such higher and/or parallel dimensional space.
If processes outlined in items 1) through 3) above can be used to induce macroscopic tunneling of macroscopic objects over appreciably short time frames, it will take a lot of study to determine how to do such. Note that any manipulations of activities based on the wave functions of electrons say within electric circuits elements such as diodes results in tunnelings over a very short distance for which there is no practical control over which specific electrons will happen to tunnel, nor is there any practical control over where in the semi-conducting crystalline material composing the diode junction a given electron will tunnel nor when it will tunnel. The tunneling process here is based on statistical probability and on an electron per electron basis, there is a great deal of randomness to this tunneling process
I suspect that we will have to find a key to unlock any such space craft tunneling process in some way that we are not yet able to experimentally discern let alone mathematically formulate. Perhaps this will require revisiting the notion of hidden quantum mechanical variables or some as yet intangible aspect of quantum mechanics distinct from the concept of hidden variables, but of the same, similar, or analogous class wherein the concepts and language required to express these would be concepts in a theoretical and mathematical or logical form and then to test them experimentally have not yet been developed or thought of yet.
4) It might be possible to use the conjectured methods in items 1) through 3) above or similar methods to induce space craft to travel through another form of short cut in space time such as a wormhole or space-time warp. These wormholes and space warps might exist and/or be producible within our own 4-D Einsteinian space-time and/or exist and/or be producible within higher and/or hidden dimensions of space and/or time such as those commonly discussed in string and brane theory as well as the popular theory of the existence of hyperspatial dimensions that our universe is conjectured to be located in as a subset of dimensions and volume of this higher dimensional space.
That’s all for now. I plan to be back on site sometime this weekend if not sooner.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim,YES! exactly what i have always been talking about! these ideas represent if you will,a first attempt at harnessing quantum tunneling and are a step in the right direction! more thought along these lines by more people for a longer time…and we will be able to stop by a different galaxy for lunch! quantum tunneling looks like an answer but i (unfortunately) do not think that it is one that can be realized for quite a long time.rather in the nature of medevil people who had ideas about flying to the moon.(?!) anyhow thank you very much for posting those ideas for us all to read,as i say, a first step. your friend george
Hi George;
Some additional concepts occurred to me regarding manned interstellar space travel ideas.
1) The first idea involves using a parallel plate capacitor wherein the separation between the conducting electrical charge containing plates is on the order of that of the atomic nucleus or about 10 EXP – 15 meters while the conducting plates would simply be made of the type of neutronium that is theoretically superconducting and with the thickness of approximately 10 EXP -15.5 meters. Also, the idea anticipates the finding of a suitable non-conducting material located between the plates with an incredibly high dielectric constant, so high that the dielectric constant would be many orders of magnitude higher than the best dielectric known. Each solid nuetronium plate would have a mass of about 300 kilograms and so the density of the capacitor would be on par with that of a neutron star. But the capacitive energy per unit volume could be incredible high even if the capacitive energy density where only a miniscule fraction of the rest mass density of the capacitor material.
Note that capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor is given by C ~ eA/d where e is the permittivity of the dielectric, A is the area of the parallel plates, and d is the separation of the parallel plates. The maximum energy storable in a capacitor is Emax = 1/2)C(Vsquared) where V is the breakdown voltage across the dielectric. So the greater values of e and A and smaller values of d combined result in greater capacitance which results in a greater energy storage density for a given dielectric material’s thickness. Also, the greater the value of e, the greater the breakdown voltage between the conducting plates for a given plate separation d.
Now, including a stack of 10 EXP 15 conducting plates with about 10 EXP 15 dielectric slabs between these plates with the above thickness and separation distances respectively would yield a capacitor with a volume of about 4 cubic meters but with a mass of probably about 4 x 10 EXP 15 metric tons. Even so, a tremendous amount of electrical energy could be stored in such devices in a compact manner thus resulting in tremendous electrical energy storage density. Another possible form for such a capacitor is to have it be composed of one sheet composed of the two conducting plates with the dielectric sandwiched between them wherein the sheet would be rolled up for more compact storage and/or usage. Note that this rolled up geometry is a common form for compact capacitors in use today in every day electronic equipment.
The point to all of this is that such capacitors could optionally be linked to a very long mass driver tube or electromagnetic gun to propel large space craft to highly relativistic velocities relatively quickly. The high density of the capacitors would assure that they would not be easily damaged by space debris and their small volume would be conducive to greatly reduced drag on these electromagnetic gun systems over millions of years of operation thus permitting a stable space craft launch system to operate over millions if not billions of years.
The capacitors could be recharged using solar or stellar energy collectors, CMBR collectors, fusion and/or fission reactor based electrical power generators, or perhaps even the various zero point energy fields, of which the electromagnetic version has been proven to exist by the Cassimere Experiment. The electrical power to charge the capacitors could be generated in close proximity to the capacitors or from remote locations and transmitted to the capacitors by relatively thin superconducting cables or wires with optionally high Tc, and extraordinarily high Ic and Mc values which are the values of temperature, current density, and magnetic fields intensity surrounding the superconductors at which the superconducting process breaks down and the superconductor becomes no longer a superconductor. Energy to power proximate photovoltaic, turboelectric, and/or thermoelectric generators may optionally be beamed to the power generators thus alleviating the need of lengthy transmission lines between the electrical power source and the capacitors to be charged.
The returning spacecraft might optionally re-enter the electromagnetic gun barrel and use magnetic breaking to slow down and/or come to a halt wherein the kinetic energy of the returning craft could be reconverted into electrical energy via magnetic linear induction or other similar process whereby the electrical energy could be transferred back into the capacitors for re-use in accelerating the same or a another spacecraft at a later time. This reusing of energy to travel back and fourth might be necessary from a cosmically environmental and renewable energy standpoint as the universe cools as it evolves and continues to expand.
For even thinner conducting plates and thinner dielectrics, perhaps some sort of matter could be used with the density of quarkonium which is speculated to be up to roughly about 1000 times denser than neutronium.
Perhaps some sort of strange matter could be used for the conducting plates while another form of strange matter could be used for the dielectric. Alternatively, perhaps some sort of super symmetric matter or some other type of cold dark matter in compressed forms could be used as the dielectric medium. Note that super-compressed or super dense super symmetric matter and/or perhaps some other forms of proposed CDM might have radically differing properties then normal density matter of these exotic forms thus perhaps enabling its use as a stable dielectric when used in conjunction with the conducting plates.
Alternatively, perhaps some sort of combination of neutronium, quarkonioum, or other types of super dense baryonic matter could be combined with super symmetric matter and/or other forms of cold dark matter to produce the required stable conducting plates and the dielectric material located between the plates. Perhaps some sort of cold dark matter doping of the neutronium, quarkonium, and/or other types of super dense baryonic matter could stably alter the dielectric and conducting properties of the super dense matter to facilitate working versions of the capacitors.
Whatever the form of the matters in the super dense capacitors, if the mass specific energy storage density is not many orders of magnitude greater than that of today’s or future normal density matter capacitors, then the effort to design, manufacture, and field such super dense capacitors might not be worth the very, very lengthy effort likely to be required in the development of any workable super dense capacitors.
2) The next concept involves the production of artificial cosmic strings by beaming incredibly intense beams of very high frequency electromagnetic radiation (most probably extreme gamma radiation) from many different angles in locations such that the electromagnetic radiation beams simultaneous intersect along a long linear segment of space in such a manner that the linearly intersecting beams form such a high linear density of energy or mattergy that the linear pattern of converging light rays suddenly forms a linear blackhole or something like it thus resulting in a linear patterned gravitationally bound state of mattergy by virtue of the mattergy’s self gravitation. The cosmic string density like arrangement could then be used for time travel and/or space-time travel by any of the workable mechanisms of such that which have been proposed to be facilitatable by cosmic strings.
In stead of using photons, perhaps some other boson could be used in beams in the same manner as the photons to produce the linear super dense pattern of mattergy. One option would be to use super symmetric particles or other type of cold dark matter particles with a spin of an integer multiple of one to do this.
Great care would need to be undertaken in developing so dense a linear pattern of mattergy so that a naked singularity or un cloaked black hole would not be produced, in short the avoidance of a potentially unpredictably disastrous situation which might in theory trash the structure, laws of physics, particles and fields, and physical constants of our entire universe.
That’s all for now. I plan to be back onsite sometime this weekend.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim, ok! fantastic ideas.but i can’t say that i follow every word.yet,yes, i too have had ideas of using the very nature of space itself for propulsion.an idea or rather concept which i am sure is good and intend to think about more and post someplace like this for review by like minded individuals.hopefully to advance “the cause”. thank you and all the best to one and all. your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critical review of my previous posting.
I happened to glanced through an online article last night about a dozen or so different types of fusion rockets on the drawing board theoretically for which a lot of the basic operating paramenters have been worked out such as specific impulse, energy content of several varieties of fusion fuel, practically achievable thrust levels etc. The author stated his very strong opinion that fusion rockets will open up the entire solar system for manned space travel, space commerce, mining, tourism, and manned exploratory missions to its outermost boundaries (which are deep into the Oort cloud).
It seems that the proton proton fusion reaction or the reactions involving the fusion of individual protons or ordinary hydrogen nuclei has the most mass specific energy output of all of the various types of fusion reactions but requires extraordinarilly high temperatures and pressures to work and thus was stated as not being a good candidate for fusion rocket fuel.. I believe that even in the case of the super high peak temperatures and pressures during the termination of the nuclear fission stage within thermonuclear weapons (during the final 10 or 20 nanoseconds of the fission reaction sequence which typically last about 0.1 to 0.5 microseconds), the starting fusion fuel takes the form of dense dueterium compounds such as Lithium-Dueterium componds and/or mixtures of dueterium and tritium which are not quite as mass specific exothermic as fusion reactions starting from single protons. Perhaps if we learn how to efficiently use the fusion sequences starting from single protons in the form of fusion rockets, such rockets might even be able allow manned travel to the nearest stars in a dozen or so years Earth time as precursor manned exploratory missions until better technologies can be developed such as matter/antimatter rockets, beamed energy and or mattergy sails, some new undiscovered versions of interstellar ramjets, and God willing antigravatic, spacetime warp, and wormhole travel methods further into the future.
Perhaps some sort of mechanism simmilar to muon catalyzed fusion can reduce the temperatures required for proton fusion thus making it more managable for manned interstellar travel to our nearest stellar nieghbors. It would be great if some exotic form of undiscovered nuclear reaction that is significantly more mass specific energetic than that for the fusion of protons could eventually be found and put to good use in nuclear rockets.
That’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
yes sir jim ! i am afraid that pretty much only “going nuclear” will be the thing that opens up the solar system and then the galaxy to human exploration! and lol,forgive me, i want to put in one more plug for that tau zero convention in atlantic city that i’d like to see! just for the “benefit” of any one who may be reviewing these comments.can you imagine if a bunch of us could get together face to face?! also about the above – i know that the main engines of the enterprise are matter/anti – matter driven and that that is still quite some stride ahead for now! but the “impulse engines ” where fusion powered! alot closer to something we might be able to do now! anyway we all have our hopes,thank you your friend george ps i hope alot of us will feel free to comment.thanks again george
Hi George:
The latest issue of Popular Science has a interesting sounding article featuring the new private enterprise spacecraft being developed such as for space tourism. I have not actually read the article but plan to sit down and read it shortly. It seems that every second or third issue in either one or both of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science features an extensive article regarding manned space-flight lately. This in itself is an encouraging sign that manned space flight is a topic that is comming back on the front burner for science enthusiasts and even the everyday informed curious individual who wants to delve into modern science culture if even only in a cursory manner.
I will post more thoughts on the subject tomorrow after I read the article.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
i’ll look forward to hearing that jim.and yes space is i think once again much more on the front burner!!! good good news.at least to all of us here.talk to everybody soon. your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the encouraging words. I just sent off an application form/servey to the Planetary Society about 5 hours ago. They seem like a good organization that promotes ordinary citizen involvement in research, planning, and input to future space missions. They had attempted to launch a space craft of their own design, a solar sail craft a about a year or so ago, but the mission was aborted after the spacecraft failed to deploy properly. The good news is that they have another solar sail spacecraft in the works. This should prove interesting.
I finally had a chance to read the Popular Science article. It turns out that the second largest aerospace firm on Earth, the Europe based EADS, is planning to offer suborbital flights in a combination jet and rocket plane that will be able to carry four passengers plus one pilot. It will fly under jet power to about 39,000 feet at which point the plane’s rocket motor will take over and bring the plane to an altitude of about 100 kilometers for a three minute weightless flight. The plane will have windows to enable passengers to look out into space as they float around weightless. After about three minutes, the passengers will gradually start to experience wieght again so that they can fasten them selves back into their seats. Afterward, the seats will rotate into an optimal position so that the passengers can comfortably and safely experience the 4.5 to 5 G’s of reentry into the lower portion of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Included in the article are pictures or artistic renditions of each of the space tourism ships of the following five aerospace firms: Armadillo, Bigelow, Rocketplane, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. Basically, all of these companies anticipate serving the space tourism industry by sometime next decade. Although most of the concepts merely involve sub-orbital flight, Bigelow, for instance, anticipates operating an inflatable space hotel made of thick kevlar/carbon fiber walls resistant to puncture by space dust particles.
Overall, it is a neat three page article with lots of photos/color illustrations.
I plan to be back onsite this weekend if not sooner.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim just saw an article,that is i took a poll on the popular mechanics site where 64% of the responents (including me) said that it is important that we send people back to the moon and on to mars. interest in space flight seems to be building again! GOOD to see! your friend george
Hi George:
Its good to see that 64% of the respondents (including yourself) to the online Popular Mechanics poll thinking it is important that we send people back to the Moon and on to Mars. I remember looking dreamily at the artist renditions of the hardware for proposed Manned Mars missions as the Apollo program was in full swing. It looks like we are not only going to have a taste of nastalgia as NASA developes and fields the harware for testing for such missions, but that we will live to see men back onto the Moon, and God willing, humanities first foot steps on Mars.
I just read an ABC Online News article about the launch of a Japanese Lunar orbiting probe that is packed with observation and measurement instrumentation. According to the article, China, India, Japan, and the United States have plans to send humans to the moon by the year 2020 or shortly thereafter. I believe that Russia also plans for a manned Lunar mission during the 2020’s or very early 2030’s and then for a manned Mars mission sometime in the 3030’s. It seems that the race for space is starting to heat up and that can only be a good thing. It appears that we now have five major players in the race to the Moon instead of the mainly U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the days of Apollo.
That’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim