265 Comments

1. James M. Essig on October 17, 2007 at 22:38

   Hi Forrest:

   Thanks for the detailed information on the oxygen beam powered craft.

   A spin off of this technology would be a magneto-plasma-hydrodynamic-drive, electro-plasma-hydrodynamic-drive, or an electromagneto-plasma-hydrodynamic-drive that would utilize the plasma within the coronasphere or magnetosphere of the sun as a reaction mass wherein the main source of energy to power any one of these drives would come from a constellation of beaming stations further out in orbit around the Sun and wherein these beaming stations would be solar powered, fusion powered, fission powered, or perhaps powered by antimatter/matter reactions or even large stores of chemical reactants.

   The idea would be to power the manned spacecraft drive systems with these beams wherein the craft would use the Sun’s plasma as a reaction mass wherein the craft would reach desired terminal velocity after a fraction of a revolution around the Sun or perhaps in several to numerous revolutions around the Sun. The craft could vector its thrust or hydrodynamic action to hold it at either a fixed, decreasing, or increasing radius from the Sun all the while gaining more velocity as it travels a curvilinear trajectory around the Sun.

   Magnetic and or electric fields could be set up around the craft from within to prevent the plasma from damaging the craft or possible even vaporizing the craft or ionizing the craft.

   As the velocity of such a craft approached C, some sort of G-force cancellation mechanism would be needed to prevent extreme centripital accelleration from crushing the inner contents and possibly the craft into ablivion. Such force cancellations mechanisms might include selective electrostatic charging of the crafts contents and then exposing the charged contents with force cancellation electric fields. Alternatively, selectively applying very strong magnetic fields within the craft to induce dipole moments in the material contents within the craft thus providing a means to induce magnetism, even in non-magnetic materials, upon which force cancellation magnetic fields could be applied. Nanotechnology means might faciliate precise placement of such electrical charge, electric fields and/or magnetic fields.

   Yet another method might include enclosing the contents of the craft especially passengers within hydrostatically sealed containers optionally further minipulated by electrostatic charge, electric currents, electric fields, and/or magnetic fields in the ways described above within the previous paragraph. Other cancellatation mechanisms might include electrogravatic forces, artificial gravity, or artificial antigravity which would judiciously be applied to the contents of the craft if such prove possible to produce.

   Regarding the beam power sources, photovoltaic, thermoelectric, and/or turbo-electric mechanisms could power electrical power derived beams. Optical pumping, thermal pumping, and chemically pumped lasers could be energized by ambient or concentrated sunlight. Chemically pumped lasers could have their chemicals recycled by reverse reaction processes powered ultimately by sunlight. Nuclear powered lasing facilites could be powered by nuclear electric power generation plants utilizing nuclear fusion, nuclear fission, or both. The fuel to power such nuclear power stations could be derived from any of the planets within the solar system, the various planetary moons, asteriods, comets, and perhaps be collected from the interplanetary gaseous medium or perhaps from the solar wind itself. Antimatter could be generated remotely and then shipped to the beaming stations.

   Perhaps instead of using remotely derived laser beams or other collimated electromagnetic radiation beams, charged and/or neutral particles beam systems powered by remotely orbiting electrical power producing stations could be emmitted by these stations and directed to the space craft either to power its hydrodynamic reaction process and/or to augment the hydrodynamic reaction mass derived from the sun with additional reaction mass derived from the matter beams.

   Perhaps both the energy to power such a craft and the craft’s reaction mass could originate from the ambient solar energy and mass flow fields adjacent to the craft and collected by the craft.

   Yet other configurations would include matter/antimatter fuel stored on board the craft, nuclear fusion fuel, or nuclear fission fuel to power any one of the above proposed hydrodynamic drive systems. Alternatively, matter and/or antimatter, fusion, and/or fission fuel could be beamed to such a craft from one or more remote locations.

   Such craft could utilize other stars, some of which have a luminosity of about 10 million times greater than the sun and/or a surface temperature an order of magnitude greater than the Sun thus having light energy emmission per unit of stellar surface area 10,000 times greater than the sun according to the T EXP 4 dependance of integrated spectral radiancy on surface temperature per unit of radiating surface for the approximately black-body radiators that stars are.

   Even more energetic sources for energy and reaction mass would be accreetion disks around supermassive blackholes if such blackholes could be accessed in a timely manner according to the dictates of the civilizations launching missions to utilize such.

   Note that space-craft accellerated by such means could use magnetic breaking to slow the craft down, or matter/antimatter, fusion, and/or fission rockets to do such.

   Now I have heard of ideas along the lines of these notions before they occurred to me and so I make no claim to be the originator of the ideas expressed within this posting, however, I thought that they were out of the ordinary and thus would interest the readership of this site regarding interstellar manned travel methods.

   Anyhow;

   That’s all for now.

   Your Friend Jim

2. george scaglione on October 18, 2007 at 9:42

   jim, as usual,always thinking i see! cool. thanks george ps lol and once again! here we sit in overflow! but it is soo good to see others joining in ! :) g

3. James M. Essig on October 18, 2007 at 22:31

   Hi George and Forrest:

   Thanks for the responses and constructive feedback.

   I had some additional interstellar travel ideas to post this evening.

   Basically, the first concept involves using a ship based accellerator to creat mini-blackholes, somewhat more massive than the ones that seem likely candidates for production at CERN when it goes back on line next year.

   The idea involves an on board or out board towed lump of matter of the right density kept safely away from the spacecraft walls if inside or safely behind if outside wherein the miniblackholes would be used to quickly canabalize the macroscopic lump of matter at which point the larger blackhole formed therein would be held a bay until it erupted in a massive explosion by Hawking Radiation emmssion. The energy of the resultant explosion would be used to provide propulsive energy for the space craft, either by direct blast based reactionary impulse energy or to be utilized by exotic yet to be realized conceptual propulsion mechanisms such as electrogravatic propulsion, antigravity, space and/or spacetime warp propulsion, wormhole travel etc.

   Obviously, the density of the material would need to be high enough so that the miniblackhole could grow even while emmitting Hawking Radiation and also in the presense of the blackhole accreetion disk caused by infalling matter. In order to achieve appropriate densities, white dwarf dense matter, neutronium, or quarkonium may be neccessary. Alternatively, some form of condensed super cold Bose Einstien Condensate might surfice wherein a very large mass of bosons; perhaps some integer spin atomic nuclei or other integer spin massive particles would work wherein the quantum mechanical states of the particles relative locations would merge or overlap thus permitting much mass to be contained within a relatively small volume.

   A need to prevent the ship from being destroyed by the blast would be required perhaps necessitating the need for some sort of force field, perhaps an electric, magnetic, and if possible artificial gravatic fields or space-time warpage of the space-time within the vacinity of the craft inorder to divert excess unwanted energy.

   Perhaps if a single blackhole of the right mass requisite to jump start macroscopic massed blackhole formation could not be produced, then maybe a mutlitude, perhaps numerous blackholes could be produced, and then combined to form a massive enough blackhole to do the work. Such composite blackholes might optionally be electrically charged so that they can be rapidly accelerated to ultra relativistic velocites to increase their lifetime for handling purposes. The combined blackhole might also be further accelerated into the fuel mass lump so that its decay rate slows to the point wherein it has enough time to scavenge the fuel lump for its growth.

   Interstellar fuel to produce these blackhole fuel lumps might optionally come from the interstellar medium. Nuclie or atoms of the requisite spin for producing Bose Einstein Condensate might be collected and used to repetitively produce such explosive blackholes for continued ship accelleration, much like a pulse rocket or pulse jet scaled up to extreme levels.

   The second concept involves laying out super-critical massed blackholes ahead of the path of a ship wherein the blackholes would be timed in terms of their detonations occuring as the craft passed by them so that the craft could utilize the resultant energy releases for its propulsion system(s). Now this would assume that the radiation release of the blackholes could be very temporally narrowly peaked so as to make the process of creating such blackholes worth the effort especially given that, ordinarilly, the radiation release distribution in time may be too spread out and thus result in a lot of radiation losses before the ship passed by the exploding blackhole.

   One possible way to control the rate of blackhole detonation might be to somehow control the virtual particle production and annihilation rates within the vacinity of the blackholes. Perhaps enclosing the blackhole in some sort of Casimer apparatus to limit the range of electromagnetic zero point vacuum fluctuation frequencies commensurate with the longest wavelengths permitted by the limiting size of the Casimer vessel could be useful.

   In order to be adequately strong, the Casimer vessel may need to be composed of superconducting carbon nanotubes or other simmilar material, but perhaps more likely, would need to be constructed of super strong superconducting neutronium or some form of quarkonium with superior mechanical and electrical properties. For small Casimer cavities, the stronger of these materials would be required inorder to prevent the cavity from being compressively collapsed into the tiny blackhole. Note that a black hole with a mass of 10 EXP 15 metric tons would have a radius of about 10 EXP -9 meters or about one nanometer. A blackhole with the mass of 10 EXP 12 metric tons would have a radius of about 10 EXP -12 meters and the force on an enclosing Casimar or simillar vessel with somehow enhanced effects having the size of a large city would be no greater than the force exerted by an approximately 7 mile diameter comet on a structure built around the comet. The G -force produced on the surface of such a comet is several orders of magntude less than that produced at Earth’s surface by the Earth’s gravitating mass.

   Perhaps matter could be periodically or continuously dumped into the blackholes in order to prevent their mass and therefore their Hawking Radiation release from running away to soon or at unopportune times. Such mass might be collected from the interstellar medium, beamed to the blackhole housing assemblies from remote locations, or brought to the blackholes by way of space craft of various forms.

   Alternatively, perhaps the Higgs Fields, if they exist as they should according to the Standard Model or particles and fields, could be minipulated to alter the rate of virtual particle pair production and annihilation within the vacinity of such blackholes inorder to control their decay rate and time of detonation. As we learn more about the possible existence of the Higgs fields, perhaps at some distant future date they could be effectively minipulated for such purposes.

   That’s all for now;

   Thanks;

   Your Friend Jim

4. forrest noble on October 18, 2007 at 23:25

   Hi guys,

   Jim, There have been proposals in the past to beam microwaves from satellite conversions of solar power (heat). These satellites were to be placed around venus – or inner solar system to beam microwaves to Earth for power conversion into electricity—our primary power grids. It was a detailed proposal contending to be cost-effective. It was made maybe 10 years ago. It was a pretty complete proposal but apparently too expensive for NASA, private enterprise, etc. Some day I think this system will probably happen. At that time these microwaves could also be used for space travel such as shown on this website: “microwave beaming, a fast sail to mars”.

   Some think of this as a slow, cheap, propulsion system. It is definitely not cheap because this beaming has to be done by satellites. It is also difficult to slow the craft down and it probably would have to have an additional power-source system. It could provide slow regular accelertation and would not be more limited in speed than any advanced interstellar craft, possibly 1/10 C or more, as fast as a vehicle can travel according to relativity and without heavy ionization/ disintegration.

   Solar wind consists primarily of protons and electrons (hydrogen). It seemingly could more economically be collected from the outer solar system in the form of water. Proton beams as well as bata beams (electrons) have both been demonstated here on earth, artificially and naturally in the form of lightning (electrons). Both, like beams in general, could be transmitted more efficiently in space, for propulsions systems when needed.

   George, with all of Jim’s ideas it’s hard to consider just some of them let alone Replies from others, right? lol.. Keep the ideas flowing, Jim.

   Your friend forrest

5. James M. Essig on October 19, 2007 at 8:43

   Hi Forrest;

   The idea of using beamed energy as you mentioned for interstellar propulsion I think is a great idea. Perhaps very low mass inflatable reflectors using highly reflective membranes (for concentrating sunlight onto PV cells that would power the beaming stations) could bring some of the mass requirements of the reflectors and thus that of the beaming stations into a more managable range.

   With the solar power output of about 4 x 10 EXP 26 Watts, capturing just 1 billionth of this power output could allow the accelleration a spacecraft with a mass of 400 metric tons to a velocity of .86 C roughly 1 day Earth time or a 40,000 metric ton space craft to about 10% of C in roughly 1 day Earth time assuming near 100% effeciency of converting the beam energies into spacecraft kinetic energy. At the very least, a good rudimentary very large solar powered beaming system might allow for huge space arks with masses of millions if not billions of tons to gradually reach mildly relativistic velocities at which point they could be launched one after another to our nearby stellar nieghbors. In summary, beamed energy propulsion is a cool idea. Thanks for mentioning it.

   Thanks;

   Your Friend Jim

6. george scaglione on October 19, 2007 at 9:38

   forrest,yes i know jim is a prolific source of good ideas.i frequently hope that someone brighter than i will say…wow! i like that idea…AND RUN WITH IT!!!guess if we all stick with it sooner or later we will uncoversomething valuable. i sure hope so anyhow! and jim i think i have maybe seen the above idea before but,lol we cover so much territory in the coarse of afew months that heck i might have posted it myself and not readily recall!!! but as i just said to forrest…if we all keep trying! thank you very much my friends including our patient administrator paul who is forced to deal with an ever expanding “practical positron rocket” ! the best to everyone,george

7. forrest noble on October 19, 2007 at 14:33

   The disadvantages of present-day microwave-powered craft design is the small scope, limited to small robotic craft. I vaguely recall the power losses of microwaves from Earth to satellite and visa versa is as high as 50% (because of the atmosphere). Unfortunately there probably could be a similar efficiency loss from particle beams. No problem if you’re only powering a couple of craft but a big problem if you’re trying to make money off this system like the solar-powered satellites I mentioned above.

   Your idea of satellite microwave generation, and then sent to space crafts directly is initially much more expensive but because it’s more efficient, eventually it seemingly would be the only way to go. Once you’re more than a few thousand miles away from Earth, microwaves may be more economical than particle beams, more punch for the buck.

   Your friend forrest

8. James M. Essig on October 20, 2007 at 22:02

   Hi Folks;

   I just thought I would mention that there is a meteor shower set to occur and be visible on the East Coastal regions of the U.S. with peak viewing opportunities supposedly on Sunday October 21st at around 5 am EST. I plan on heading out to view the night sky at around 2:30 am this morning.

   That’s all for now.

   Your Friend Jim

9. James M. Essig on October 22, 2007 at 1:03

   Hi George and Forrest:

   A couple of other interstellar travels ideas occurred to me as topics on which to post.

   1) The first idea involves a notion that either I or someone else posted several months ago but that I thought would be good to revisit in a reframed manner.

   Basically, the idea involves a system of very large blackholes or a summation of very large blackholes, Sigma B.H., wherein one blackhole would be the largest or base blackhole around which a blackhole of perhaps 1/2 to 1/10 of its mass would orbit. This orbiting blackhole would have another blackhole orbiting itself and so on with perhaps the number of blackholes orbiting blackholes orbiting blackholes consisting of anywhere from 10 about 30 levels of orbit corresponding to the mass range of 1/10 to 1/2 of the mass or an orbiting blackhole with respect to its parent or anchoring blackhole.

   Ideally, the first blackhole would have the mass of the observable universe and thus would have a radius of roughly that of the observable universe while the smallest blackhole in the nested series would have a mass or about 10 EXP 13 solar masses so that the period of blackhole orbits would range from about 10 EXP 11 years to about 10 years wherein each blackhole would orbit its parent blackhole at a velocity close to C commensurate with the orbit of a given blackhole being just outside the event horizon of its parent blackhole. This long period of orbit would be designed to minimize the risk of orbital decay based on gravitational wave emmissions by the system of nested orbits thus allowing for longterm relativistic orbiting velocities to be maintaned.

   The rotational velocity of each blachole would be chosen to be very close to C if not equal to C wherein the orbital velocity of the outer side of a spinning blackhole would be parallel to its orbital velocity.

   Now if such a system could be stably maintained over cosmic time frames, perhaps the superposition of orbital velocites along with the superposed reference frame draging effects compounded from the largest blackhole in the series thru the smallest blackhole could allow for extraordinarilly highly relativistic gravitational assists with reference frame dragging effects superposed to enable very very massive intergalactic or cosmic distance scale traveling space arks to reach extremely high gamma factors thus promoting the distribution of very large, perhaps large planetary sized or massed space habitats throughout not only the observable universe but throughout the adjacent non-observable portions.

   How one would maintain such a system against gravitational radiation based decay or collapse is anyones guess, but perhaps some how periodically adding orbital kinetic energy to each child blackhole in relation to its parent could keep the system “afloat”. This might be done by beaming extremely relativistic particles into the vacinity of an orbiting blackhole in such a way that the gravitational attraction of the blackhole to the incomming matter actually increases its orbital velocity. Candidates for such particle beam might be charged stable particles such as electrons, ions, atomic nuclei, and perhaps even neutrinos (such as the electron neutrino, the muon neutrino, and/or the tau neutrino) or weakly interacting massive particles or hot dark matter. Perhaps even super high powered photon energy beams could be utilized for such a purpose as well. Ultra relativistic slugs of large macroscopic rest masses might optionally be used for this purpose.

   Perhaps some method of gravitational radiation capture could be used to absorb and convert the gravitational radiation being emmitted from such a system back into a form or recycled into a form whereby it could be redirected back towards a given orbiting blackhole and by way of gravitational interection of the blackhole with the incooming mass and/or energy beams, yield a mechanism by which the orbital altitude of a given blackhole with respect to its parent could be increased or at least maintained in order to prevent parent-child blackhole system collapse.

   In order to accomplish gravitational wave energy collection perhaps some exotic from of stretchable medium could be utilized whereby the mechanical stresses of the gravitational waves stretching and compressing the medium as the wave passed through would be converted to electrical energy, thermal energy, electromagnetic energy, and the like for purposes of providing power to the beams used to increase the distance of orbit of a child blackhole relative to its parent. Perhaps other dimensions of space or spacetime could be used as the medium with with to capture, convert, and/or redirect the converted energy into a form suitable for maintaining or increasing orbital distance between child blacholes and their parents as necessary or desired.

   2) The second idea is one that has been around for a while but which I thought to mention it anyway since I have never commented on this concept before.

   Basically, the idea requires that the unverse we live in or at least a large region within it be rotating at a very high rate relative to some fixed background spacetime or fixed analogue to spacetime whatever that would be. If such a rotation rate is highly superluminal or much much greater than C and if an object within our universe can be momentarilly decoupled inertially or spacetime location presense-wise from our rotatiing 4-D ordinary Einsteinian space-time and then reintroduced after a large angular displacement of the evacuated region within our spacetime, then perhaps the object or spaceship can be reintroduced at a location of an ensemble of lightyears away from where it left in only a microscopic or atleast small temporal period with respect to Earth’s reference frame or with respect to the reference frame of the more or less stationary interstellar medium from which the space craft left.

   Depending on the higher dimensionality of our universe and the way our universe would rotate through or in such higher dimensional directions, the above mechanism of decoupling might be used to reenter our spinning universe in some of its other hidden dimensions. This might also be the case if some of these would be higher dimensions within our universe rotate relative to our observable 4-D ordinary Einstienian spacetime.

   That’s all for now.

   Thanks;

   Your Friend Jim

10. george scaglione on October 22, 2007 at 10:33

    jim,wow some pretty fantastic stuff!! the energy involved in such a sysytem of black holes might allow us to do things we can now barely dream of!! provided of coarse that we could ever build such a system. but imagine,to put it mildly,the interstellar travel that might be possible! or..what if? an alien species now has such a system?! would they be worth talking to?? in a word lol YES!!!!! thank you your friend george

11. James M. Essig on October 23, 2007 at 22:32

    Hi George and Forrest;

    It occured to me to mention the possibility of huge space arks that would travel at about 1/4,000 the speed of light powered by nothing but chemical rockets. At 75 km/sec, such space arks could reach Alpha Centuri in about 16,000 years. Such space arks could travel to the farthest reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy by about 300 million years. Thus, with ordinary chemical rockets, we could spread humanity through out the Milky Way Galaxy.

    Such space arks could be huge affairs or so-called space zondes with masses including living supplies of up to 10 EXP 18 metric tons and could conceivably be made of materials of one or two orders of magnitude stronger than carbon nanotubes to allow rotation to simmulate artificial gravity. They could be powered by nuclear fission fuel in massive reactors for day to day in flight power requirements and optionally be superinsulated from electromagnetic energy based radiative power losses through multuwalled evacuated superconducting outer skins.

    Massive nuclear fission powered space arks could reach up to 0.1C thus allowing colonization of locations as far away as one billion lightyears in 10 billion years ship time or close to such Earth time. Once again, such space arks could be repleat with nuclear reactors for day to day power requirements and also be superinsulated from radiative energy losses so that energy emmissions from within could be recycled as long as there was thermodynamic means to capture and recycle the energy used.

    Massive nuclear fusion powered space arks could reach velocities of up to 1/3 C thus permitting colonization of locations as far away as 3.3 billion lightyears in 10 billion years Earth time. These ships could utililize nuclear fusion reactors for day to day power requirements and might resupply themselves with interstellar hydrogen and helium for fuel. These ships could also be superinsulated electromagnetically and conserve and recycle energy emmissions from within.

    Matter/Antimatter powered space arks could reach 0.99C to 0.999C depending on the initial supply of matter/antimatter fuel an could travel well beyond the currently observable universe radius of 13.7 billion years in less than 1 billion years ship time and take advantage of the space time expansion to achieve recessional velocities from the Milky Way Galaxy and therefor from Earth of much greater than C after 1 billion years have elapsed ship time.

    Interstellar ramjet type space arks with masses as high as 10 EXP 18 metric tons could conceivably accelerate practically forever ever gaining relativistic velocity increases with respect to the background space they travel through while ever gaining orders of manitude velocity increases over C with respect to the Milky Way. With a constant accelleration of one G, if such could ever be achieved (possibly more likely for much smaller interstellar ramjet powered space arks), such a space ark could circumnavigate the currently observable universe in only about 56 years ship time. This distance covered would be a staggering appoximately 80 million lighyears. Perhaps means other than interstellar ramjet propulsion could be utilized to power such a craft using the collection of ambient interstellar and intergalactic hydrogen and helium concentrations for rocket fuel and/or “unburnt” reaction mass.

    Note that fission, fusion, and matter/antimatter powered space arks could utilize supermassive blackholes for huge gravitational assists providing some way of reducing near event horizon tidal stresses on the space arks hulls and their internal structural contents could be provided. Perhaps blackholes with masses as high as 10 EXP 14 solar masses could be discovered in route and utilized for tremendous gravity assists without the need for tidal stress reduction mechanisms.

    Perhaps material having a negative index of refraction could line the front of the space arks to in effect be pulled forward by greatly dopplar blue shifted (relative to the space arks) interstellar and intergalactic photons such a starlight and cosmic microwave background radiation.

    The point I am making with all of these examples is that travel throughout the Milky Way Galaxy and the well beyond the furthest reaches of the currenlty observable universe is in theory possible with current scientific knowledge that is tried and proven technologically applicable if not now then within a few decades of technological improvements. Extremely super luminal recessional velocities from Earth are definately possible given enough distance covered by fission, fusion, and especially matter/antimatter powered space arks and space arks that derive their fusion fuel from the interstellar and intergalactic medium.

    No doubt, the constuction of such space arks would take centuries if not millenia but should in theory be possible. However, much more effecient and effective interstellar space propulsion mechanisms will probably be developed during this time frame thus oleviating the need for such space arks all together. Either way, I am very confident that we are going to the stars because I believe such is definately possible. So in the spirit of Tau Zero, I say “To The Stars”.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

12. forrest noble on October 23, 2007 at 23:14

    Hi Jim,

    On your 1st. idea Black Holes. As far as getting a gravitational whip, a galactic Black Hole is certainly one of the quickest accelerations we might be able to get but unless we could carry an entire gravitational field with us we seemingly would be crushed by the G forces.
    Even with slow but steady acceleration like a micro-wave beam, our limitation I believe would be ionization and disintegration at 10 to 15% the speed of light. If we’re not “spread out” then we still must consider GR limitations. To go beyond light speed relative to your surrounding field is believed to be tricky business (or even very difficult?)

    The 2nd. Idea – a rotating central galactic region. We’re dealing here with relative motion. We could consider the central region rotating and the outer region generally stationary, or we could say the inner region was stationary and the outer region was orbiting or that both would be moving relative to each other. Of course if this were the case there would be no truth only a perspective. I don’t know about extra dimensions. But if you were riding the inside or outside merry-go-round you would generally be able to predict when in the future it would be the right moment– the shortest distance to travel from point A to point B. Even if there were some rotational characteristic to the observable universe we might not want to wait tooooooooooooooooooooooooo long for the right moment. If there were extra dimensions or wormholes it would be great—someday!

    George– Alien species! could be either a great jump-start to technology or a quick end. lol again.

    All for now, your friend forrest

13. george scaglione on October 24, 2007 at 16:53

    forrest, a great jump start or a quick end! maybe so yes but it would depend on alot of factors.heck to trust the human race to work together on such a thing in a constructive way…well errr aaaah!? maybe i should worry some your probably right!still,i feel,that we are most likely not alone in infinity and considering all the trillions of miles involved and the billions of years i don’t think it is over wild to say that there might indeed be alien races that have some pretty interesting abilities by now.we may be where they where 5 million years ago for all we know! well my friend this is only a simple posting and on a subject i might ad upon which libraries could be written and the best minds on earth could debate! a week ago i was lucky to get over to princeton university,about 33 miles from where i presently sit. had the general impression that i was indeed surronded by some of the best minds in our country.loved it can’t wait to go back!but anyhow,thanks your friend george

14. george scaglione on October 24, 2007 at 16:59

    jim,yes there is no doubt that great things,big things could be done with current technology.will we be foresighted enough to do them? get behind them? spend the money? have the vision? well maybe not for at least a while yet!but…things are getting started no worry there.all the best your friend george

15. James M. Essig on October 25, 2007 at 23:42

    Hi George and Forrest:

    Not sure if this message made it into the comments waiting to be moderated in box, so I will try one more time to post it.

    Thanks for the above critical review of my previous postings as well as your valued input on respective matters.

    George, in this infinite universe, I can’t help but believe that there are innumerable intelligent civilizations among the stars.

    I had some additional comments regarding interstellar manned space travel as follows.

    1) The first idea involves breaking down a persons body and/or spacecraft and then transmitting the quantum mechanical information that defines the quantum mechanical wave function that defines the above entities down materials with negative index of refraction-like properties wherein the group wave velocity for electromagnetic radiation passing thru these materials is greater than C in a vacuum..

    Negative index of refraction materials for the phase velocity of electromagnetic radiation appear possible and have actually already been demonstrated recently wherein the phase velocity of light through such materials is greater than C in a vacuum wherein these materials are a subset of materials referred to as metamaterials. According to most literature on the topic, these materials do not actually allow sending energy or information through themselves at a velocity greater that C in a vacuum, however if additional metamaterials could be developed that would allow the group velocity of the electromagnetic waves to travel within at velocities greater than C in a vacuum, we would not only have a means for superluminal signal transmission, but also could perhaps have a means to transport macroscopic objects in the form of their quantum mechanical state properties over cables with group velocity index of refractions less than one thus permitting the violation of the long cherished notion in special relativity that no object or signal can travel through space at velocities greater than C in a vacuum.

    Perhaps metamaterials with a group velocity index of refraction less than one that actually allow lossless propagation of electromagnetic radiation through them could be formed into very long conduits perhaps as long as billions if not trillions of light-years or greater in length wherein persons and/or manned spacecraft could be beamed down the conduits for arrival at distant portions of our observable universe wherein the conduits would have high strain, high elasticity properties to allow stretching along with cosmic space time expansion.

    Materials with such properties might even be fabricated out of neutronium or quarkomium type compounds to also allow very high levels of optical power transmission for really massive spacecraft. Note that neutronium and quarkonium based materials as such might operate at only discrete frequencies analogous to those by which nuclear isomers radiate or emit when they decay from their excited nuclear isomeric energy levels.

    2) The second concept is similar to the first but instead involves the transport of a broken down human body and/or space craft into a beam of gluons or nuclear force carrying particles and transmitting the contained quantum mechanical defining information down cables made of solid neutronium or solid quarkonium with velocities greater than C in a vacuum in a somewhat if only slightly analogous manner in which the proposed greater than C group wave velocity electromagnetic materials would work. I am not sure how such materials would work given that the velocity transmission of gluons within the atomic nucleus also is limited to C by currently widely accepted special relativistic paradigms such as relativistic quantum field theory and the like. Perhaps some sort of metamaterials could be developed to display these superluminal transport properties that do not exist in nature.

    Note that the definition of metamaterials is essentially materials whose holistic structure allows the materials to have characteristics that are not found in naturally occurring materials wherein the materials are composite materials with operative features several to many times larger than the materials fundamental units. A good example is an electromagnetic radiation active meta-material one composed inductive microscopic coils embedded within a dielectric medium wherein the coils and their spacing are several times larger than the scale of the atomic and/or molecular composition of the dielectric medium.

    Also note that the index of refraction of a material is commonly represented as the ratio of the speed of light in the vacuum over the speed of light within the material. Naturally occurring materials of index of refraction of less than one do rarely occur in nature however this less than one index of refraction is for the phase velocity of the electromagnetic waves passing through them as opposed to the group velocity wherein the transmission of energy or signals through these less than one index of refraction materials is associated with the group wave velocity which is less than C in a vacuum as opposed to the phase velocity of the transmitted waves.

    In items 1) and 2) above, some sort of really bazaar material able to transmit energy at a velocity of billions to trillions of time greater than C would be ideal for sending signals across the observable universe in a timely manner although I would not count on the development of any such materials anytime soon. However, with conjectures on materials of negative mass, imaginary mass, and cold dark matter, the development and deployment of the above superluminal materials of such extreme properties would not necessarily surprise me given millions and billions of years of materials science development. Remember that we thought the production of bulk antihydrogen and positronium was science fiction several decades ago and now apparently the U.S. Air force is involved in research into the practical development and usage of such materials perhaps in highly classified programs according to numerous open literature speculations on this subject. Accounts of such have even appeared in recent years in major daily mainstream newspapers.

    3) Another concept that I would like to revisit that I touched on several months ago involves the building of huge telescopes or very long baseline interferometer (VLBI) optical telescopes on the moon or out beyond the perturbative effects of our solar system. Such a telescope built on the moon including hundreds or mirrors each a few hundred meters across wherein the distribution of mirrors would span several hundred kilometers has been proposed as a means to image the tree line patterns on Earth like planets as far away as hundreds of light-years. No doubt that the signals from these reflectors would have to be combined and temporally recorded with atomic clocks of the utmost accuracy but in theory should be doable especially with image enhancement and filtering software.

    Optical VLBIs with collection areas of billions if not trillions of square kilometers spread out over hundreds of millions of kilometers should in theory be able to image tree lines at the edge of the observable universe and be able to read alien news papers in other nearby galaxies. The reflectors for these huge VLBIs could be inflatable very low pressure reflective balloon type reflectors with nanotechnological shape adjusting mechanisms embedded in the reflectors constituent pressure deformable highly reflective membranes

    Perhaps the smaller range of these VLBIs could be used to determine which planets around other nearby stars are candidates for missions for mildly relativistic to extremely relativistic manned spacecraft.

    One the more down to Earth side, I read an article on NBC news online tonight about China’s launch of its first lunar probe which is designed to map the surface mineral deposits on the moon. They hope to send a rover return mission to and from the Moon within a decade. Also, China expressed interest in participating in the International Space Station project. Thus we are getting more and more players in the space club every year or so. Things are indeed about to get real interesting.

    That’s all for now;

    Your Friend Jim

16. george scaglione on October 26, 2007 at 17:07

    jim,at first i thought you where just revisiting the concept of beaming ala star trek but i have to admit upon my second more careful reading i was lost long about the second paragraph! also… i can not help but wish the chinese good luck with their space program.yes things are getting interesting i agree. however i in no way can underwrite any of chinas policies or government much of that seems pretty off center to me.but in space,well, what can i say? the us,china,japan,india,russia,several private companies in the us!!! seems like moves in the right direction.oh! the esa!!! the club just gets bigger and bigger! thanks again your friend george

17. forrest noble on October 26, 2007 at 18:00

    Howdy Jim, Glad to see you’re back “in action”.

    As for your first idea—quantum states cannot be scanned or “measured”. The exact quantum states/ conditions of an atom/ molecule such as relative position, energy, etc. are only predictable as probabilities—like it’s probably here rather than there. It’s energy is probably in a given range, etc.

    As far as inanimate objects such as a single element or a simple molecule they are generally “scanable”. But how would you use this info and reassemble the matter in a different location. Nuclear Fusion is one problem. It seems to me possible that some day maybe simple matter might be transported this way. But I don’t think anything like Star-Trek style, “beam me up Scotty” could ever happen. But if it could, I’m sure we all would love to be part of it.

    Communicating faster than the speed of light through some kind of cable as you suggested, I believe will happen, maybe within our lifetime. But its use this century, as far as I can foresee, would seemingly be very limited.. Light can travel around the Earth about 7 times per second. Somebody however may find a valuable use for it, maybe some way to speed up computer circuitry using optics.

    Your second idea of a beam: would provide the raw material, but again I can’t imagine how anything complicated could ever be put back together in exactly the same condition. Except for simple things it is today theoretically impossible—although it would be fantastically cool if there was or could be such a thing. As far as your ideas concerning new, unbelievable materials, I believe the future will be full of them.

    3) I’m with you on this idea. I know it generally can be done, but when?
    I want it now!!! Where’s the money? Lol

    Yeh, I discussed with George the same thing about other future Space players. I think it’s great as long as their military or our military involvement out there is solely defensive. The world is interested in this stuff all right— at least the smart people, lol again. I’m definitely not a proponent of spending public funds when the public will is not there. How much further ahead would the world be if just 10% of the world’s war-moneys were spent on Space and technology instead? Oh well. As far as the Airforce re: anti-matter—I need to be an advisor on that project, really!!! Hey, they don’t have to take my advice.

    Have the day off so a little more time to consider mutually interesting ideas.

    Your friend forrest

18. forrest noble on October 26, 2007 at 19:23

    Hey George,

    I’m not overly impressed with “very-smart” scientific acadamians. They always want to talk about their wild, crazy ideas but I want to talk about mine.

    your friend forrest

19. george scaglione on October 27, 2007 at 10:23

    forrest,about those academicians named above,i agree with you.but as for me,all i want is the chance to speak with them myself.so as to hopefully get them interested in working on the ideas i hold dear! kinda goes around in a circle,no?! also…i do think it would be a great idea if these things could be developed by the military,but,for peaceful purposes.lol,did i just contradict myself!? anyway like all of us here i’d like to see the work done! also…….forrest and jim,above conversation on beaming is very interesting too it can only help to keep thinking about it but weather it is or is not possible per say,still by products that might be very useful might emerge as a sidelight of the research! hope to hear from both of you soon and thank you very much your friend george

20. James M. Essig on October 28, 2007 at 20:14

    High George and Forrest;

    I tried to post this a day or so ago and do not think it made it into the moderation in box. So I will try once again.

    Thanks for the comments and critical review of my previous posting.

    George, I also cannot underwrite any of China’s space policies especially given their shoot down of a deactivated sattelite earlier this year. I feel uncomfortable with China’s attitude on a lot of defense related issues and technologies. Good comments!

    Forrest, I think you would make a great advisor on the Air Force’s antimatter projects. Given the apparent assymmetries between matter and antimatter, I think they would like input from you on some of your unique ideas and perspectives.

    Huge extraordinarilly high resolution telescopes would be cool for searching for Earthlike planets to send manned missions to. Even, huge space ark like multigeneration ships could prove valuable for reaching any of the thousands of stars within about a 40 light year radius of Earth in 400 years at speeds as high as 0.1 C which could be reached with todays technology perhaps using very high mass specific yield but low absolute yield atomic or hydrogen bombs reacting off a huge craft with a magnetically or electrically insulated highly refractive pusher plate. Other technologies that might permit such speed for huge space arks include nuclear fission powered nuclear electric drive or beamed energy sails etc.

    With extensions in human life span and expectancy that might soon be possible, perhaps the public in the comming decades would permit funding of excursions much further out into the Milky Way until more appropriate technologies for allowing manned space craft to reach velocites virtually equal to C or faster could be developed or spatial distance seperation shortening techniques could be developed such as worm hole short cuts through space or spatial separation contraction technologies could be developed.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

21. george scaglione on October 29, 2007 at 11:55

    you know jim,talking about permiting flights further out into the milky way…i wonder…which of the presidential candidates might be in the best interests of those of us here.? any or all comments would be welcome from any of our members on this subject which i honestly must admit that i really don’t know that much about. thank you one and all your friend george

22. forrest noble on October 29, 2007 at 23:49

    Hi Jim,

    A space Ark will be built some day if mankind survives that long as we all hope. I don’t think we necessarily need sophisticated propulsion systems in the near future, just as long as the system provides slow acceleration we can reach whatever maximum speed is possible based upon the design of the craft as long as we could also provide for slowing it down. A Pusher Plate or sail is great for beamed energy and a capture device for beamed particles.

    Long life expectancy, life suspension, multi-generation craft as you proposed, I believe, will likely all come to pass making star journeys feasible even if we don’t figure out how to get past the speed of light. We all know the future will behold great things; unfortunately many of the greatest of those may be unforeseeable now.

    As for China, Jim, don’t think we have to worry too much about them. Almost their entire economy and present success is based upon our purchases. They’re doing O.K. selling to Europe, Japan, etc. but I don’t think they would at the present time dare to do anything to jeopardize their trade status. As for the foreseeable future, don’t think they would bite the hand that feeds them. They, Russia, and we are not as paranoid as we mutually used to be, less tension. They’re also going to host the Olympics soon and presently want to make a good impression on the world in general. Anyway that’s my opinion for whatever it’s worth. I think today their robot craft is starting to orbit the moon. Maybe that competition will get our country’s ass in gear. That’s what it took the last time that we went to the moon.

    George,

    The democrats are always big on spending money including NASA etc.
    Unfortunately we’ve spent so much money on the war, right or wrong, that we really can afford little else. I haven’t heard any candidate talking about NASA, space, etc. The war being so unpopular, I think the democrats will win this time. No matter who wins I think Congress will dump the war funding soon. Then soon, I hope, we can get back to NASA business.

    All for now, your friend forrest

23. James M. Essig on October 30, 2007 at 11:36

    Hi George and Forrest;

    I tried to post this message last night but perhaps my uplink connection was defective as the message was never indicated as being in the moderation in box as it usually is after the first attempt at posting

    Thanks for the above comments and questions.

    George;

    I am not sure of the intentions of any of the presidential candidates. I do not really trust any of the current ones although I hope who ever gets elected will do what is in the best interest of the American people. I actually kind of like Obama and Guiliani and am not sure whether I will vote along Democratic or Republican lines this upcomming presidential election.

    Forrest;

    Thanks for your comments and insights regarding space arks and your wisdom regarding China. On second thought, I think you are absolutely right. They wouldn’t want to disrupt the market that feeds them and their publicity in the upcomming Olympics. The Olympics as such may be the best thing for them inorder to reasure them that the U.S. is not against them.

    I have a few more interstellar transport ideas to mention as follows.

    1a) The first idea involves the notion of constructing a huge mass of nuclear fusion or matter/antimatter fuel composed of a super dense material of increadible high mass specific strength wherein the mass of material would consist of a material with an extraordinarilly high relative dielectric constant inwhich charged particles would be included in a charged matrix like material in such a manner that a mass of perhaps 100,000 solar masses would be contained within the volume of the sun but held up against gravitational collapse by the electrically charged super high relative dielectric constant material.

    The idea here would be to suddenly destabilize the mass of material and cause it to undergo complete nuclear fusion or matter/antimatter annihilation is such a manner that almost all of the energy contained within the mass would be converted to kinetic energy of a space craft.

    If the energy could be transferred to a 1,000 metric ton space craft, then perhaps the kinetic energy of the space craft would be so great that the space craft would instantly obtain a gamma factor of 10 EXP 27 for a fusion mass and 10 EXP 29 for a matter/antimatter reaction mass. A space craft with the mass of the Earth at about 10 EXP 21 metric tons would suddenly reach a gamma factor of 10 EXP 9 for a fusion mass and a gamma factor of 10 EXP 11 for a fission mass. A space craft with the mass of the Sun would experience a gamma factor of 10 EXP 3 for a fusion mass and a gamma factor of 10 EXP 5 for a matter/antimatter annihilated mass.

    The problems in constructing such a mass would be daunting. For one, the mass if it where composed of fusionable material would have to somehow be kept from undergoing nuclear fusion perhaps be keeping it cool somehow as it is constructed. Even cool masses of such density, mass, and therefor pressure would need to be charged to the extent that the masses nucleonic density does not become so great that the nucei within the center are squeezed to the extent that the compressional forces cause the nuclei to approach each other so closely that some or all of the nuclei overcome their coloumbic barrier and fuse thus resulting in energy releases, which even on a small scale could result in destabilization of the whole mass and the propagation of a fusion wave or fusion waves spreading throughout the whole mass thus resulting in premature detonation.

    The materials would need to be appropriately chosen so that the charged particles holding up the mass would not be forced to become dislodged from the matrix or crystal like material to which they are bonded and migrate toward the outer surface of the mass in a simmilar manner that the electrons on an electrically charged conductive sphere migrate to the outer surface of the conducting sphere. If the charged particles were not bound tightly enough to the matrix material, then such outward migration would cause the whole mass to collapse inward thus forming a huge blackhole.

    1b) If the thermodynamics and the material science could be worked out to allow the construction of the above dimensioned masses, then perhaps simmilar masses with a radius of 10 billion kilometers having a mass of 100 million solar masses could be constructed in a layered onion like fashion wherein the very center of the concentric series of layers or shells would have the greatest net charge density followed by a layer of charged fusion fuel or matter.antimatter fuel, onwhich another layer of charge would be overlayed followed by another layer of charged fusion fuel or matter/antimatter fuel on which another layer of charge would be overlayed etc., on out to the final layer of matter or fuel.

    This 100 million solar mass of fuel would permit an Earth massed spacecraft to suddenly achieve a gamma factor 10 EXP 12 for a fusion mass and a gamma factor of 10 EXP 14 for a matter/antimatter mass providing the energy released was utilized with an effeciency close to 100 percent. A Solar massed spacecraft would achieve a gamma factor of 10 EXP 6 for a fusion mass and a gamma factor of 10 EXP 8 for a matter/antimatter annihilated mass.

    For all of the scenerios discussed within the previous paragraph and the scenarios for the 1000 metric ton space craft and the Earth massed spacecraft discribed under section 1a), some means may be required to prevent the spacecraft from becomming blackholes based on their own self gravity based on the rest mass equivalent of their kinetic energy becomming so great that ships form a blackhole based on their mass/energy density being greater than the critical limit for blackhole formation along the direction of their greatest dimension. Also, some means of preventing the spacecraft from being destroyed in these huge detonations and also from having their hulls and interior structure and contents from being crushed into ablivion by the titanic accellerations would need to be provided.

    1c) Another configuration would consist of producing a huge chunk of matter of the dimensions given above in either sections 1a) or 1b) and another chuck of equal dimensions composed of antimatter and then allowing the two chunks to gravitationally attract each other and explosively combine in a huge explosion wherein the resulting energy could be utilized to propell huge space craft such as those described above.

    Perhaps a huge number of smaller space craft could be launched from a single location by such an event wherein each of these space craft would have a gamma factor of several to many orders of magnitide greater than unity and wherein these space craft would be launched in a spherically symmetric pattern in all general outward directions into the cosmos permitted by the number of space craft launched so that humanity or any intellegent extraterrestrial species could radiate out into the cosmos in a huge number of directions and missions.

    2) The second main idea is simmilar to those expressed in sections 1b and 1c) except that material layers having negative mass would be used to hold up the material layers from collapse in an analogous manner that material linings of negative mass have been proposed to hold open the mouths and throats of macroscopic wormholes from the huge forces that would otherwise cause them to collapse in an instant.

    At this point, one might ask why bother producing such huge potentially unstable masses just to accellerate reactionary propulsion space craft to such relativistic but sublight velocities? The answer might be that the would be gamma factors might be so high that deviations from the laws of special and/or general relativity might become manifest in such a manner that space travel over cosmic distances might be further facilitated by such. Also, the huge energies released might facilitate the operation of mechanisms capable of producing tremendous space warps for warp drive or space time distance contractions to faciliate greatly reduced distances required to be travel by interstellar or intergalactic missions, or perhaps for the production of huge wormholes and/or for openings into higher dimensional space or parallel dimesnional space if such are possible and/or such exist respectively.

    Perhaps space craft that are accellerated via kinetic energy gains to the point that they become blackholes with respect to the surrounding interstellar or intergalactic media could use the self blackhole production perhaps somehow combined with their extremely relativistic velocity as a space time warp for superluminal travel through space at many orders of magnitude greater than C, travel into the cosmically distant future and/or past, travel into higher dimensional space and/or paralell dimensional space, and/or travel into other universes or big bangs altogether.

    Anyhow, I hope I did not go too far out on a limb with this shear speculation, but given billions if not trillions of years of technological evolution, I would not be at all surprised if the human race, if we still exist, could undertake sucessful projects of the above magnitudes, if not sooner.

    That’s all for now.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

24. george scaglione on October 31, 2007 at 9:46

    jim,this is a space site not a political one so maybe i did the wrong thing introducing a political bent!? but i will do alot of thinking before i vote for president too. thanks for the ideas also.if we keep plugging away maybe someday we will get a great result!!!!! or anyhow,so i hope! thanks your friend george

25. forrest noble on October 31, 2007 at 19:54

    Happy Holloween Guys. Thought I posted this yesterday but guess it didn’t take.

    Wow Jim,
    1000 mitric ton craft, O.K., 100,000 solar masses of a constucted propulsion reservoir, a “small problem”. I can’t even imagine the scales you’re talking about, a future Noah’s Ark maybe? I think with that scale craft/ propulsion system you might seriously be able to travel warp speeds because essentially you could take your own gravitational field with you. What’s a few hundred million years development time between friends anyway? Anything above would certainly be spectacular!! Maybe we’ll have to do something drastic someday when our solar system can’t accommodate any more people. Going far out on a limb? No! You’re becoming a good science fiction writer. Keep up the good work Jim; just funning you a little. it’s interesting reading.

    Your friend forrest

26. James M. Essig on October 31, 2007 at 22:04

    Hi George and Forrest;

    Thanks for the comments and constructive review of my previous posting.

    Happy Holloween.

    George;

    It will be interesting to learn how the next one or two administrations will advocate for manned space travel. I hope that the growing number of international space travel players will encourage the next few administrations to get in gear and really start to ramp up the manned space program.

    Forrest;

    Thanks for the review and kind comments. I will keep up the good work. It makes me wonder how many people will be living on the Moon, Mars, and on space habitats in interplanetary space formed out of raw materials within the Asteriod Belt, Kuiper Belt, and Oort cloud. Even, before we venture far out into the outer reaches of the solar system and beyond, I believe there will be plenty of exciting times ahead in the near future as we go back to the Moon, onto Mars, and in manned missions to the Asteriods. I think 2020 is the time frame for the U.S. to return to the Moon and I am sure there will be a lot of nastalgia among we who were around during the Apollo Program. Perhaps this fact alone will jump start or bootstrap the space program to even more ambitious near term goals. One can only hope so.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

27. george scaglione on November 1, 2007 at 9:44

    jim and forrest…with all the respect in the world to both of you and certainly meaning no offense.sometimes the things we talk about here are more suited to a million year old alien species like maybe the ones from 2001 a space odyssey.while at the same time i am “just” worried about other things like,getting back to the moon,mars, a near earth asteroid,and…maybe bases on the moon and mars! ! and argggh,i feel sick…maybe those things even are not in the cards or at least maybe not for a long time!! i agree jim the next couple of presidents had better be sympathetic to “our cause” or to coin a phrase,”it ain’t gunna happen!!!” quick somebody – tell me something POSITIVE !!!! thank you your friend george

28. James M. Essig on November 1, 2007 at 14:12

    Hi George;

    Thanks for the candid expression of your thoughts and concerns on the matter of our postings and on our civilizations need to, first, really start reaching out into our own back yard of the solar system.

    On the positive note as you requested, there is an excellent article posted on the MSNBC online news site about China’s ambitious plans to develope two new classes of rockets, one of which will be about the same size as the Saturn V for the apollo missions, in support of their goals to go to the moon and beyond. The good news is that I think these ambitious Chinese plans will spur the U.S. onward more vigorously to faciliate our goals in manned interplanetary travel.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

29. James M. Essig on November 1, 2007 at 21:11

    Hi George and Forrest;

    A few practical methods of getting to low Earth orbit and around the solar system occured to me over the past few months.

    1) The first idea involves a hypersonic plane that carries a manned orbital rocket along side. The hypersonic space plane would reach about 8,000 to 10,000 mph in a trajectory that would take it out of the atmoshphere and into space. Once at orbital altitude while traveling its ballistic trajectory, the manned rocket plane would seperate and fire its rockets to obtain low, medium, or high altidude Earth orbit. The hypersonic space plane would then descend back into the Earth’s atmosphere and land on an airport runway.

    The hypersonic space plane could be designed to carry passengers and/or cargo for a quick 1 hour or so intercontenental flight for reasons of economy. Perhaps the ballistic hypersonic plane could carry commercial space tourists or those wishing to cross the oceans in about an hour.

    Note the the hypersonic space plane could be a scramjet, rocket assisted scramjet, or some type of hypersonic pulse jet powered craft simmilar to the alledgedly classified Arorae hypersonic space plane that some open sources said is capable or was capable of doing 8,000 mph at 250,000 to 500,000 feet altitude (about 50 to 100 miles).

    With multiple stages, perhaps the manned rocket craft could be designed to travel to the moon and possibly land on or land on and take off from the lunar surface and travel back to Earth. Such might require very effecient chemical rockets using our best available chemical rocket fuels.

    2) The second concept involves manned interplanetary space craft that would use a mass driver for propulsion wherein the mass driver would fire lumps of mass on the order of 10 to 100 kilograms via an electromagnetic gun at velocities ranging from 10 kilometers per second to 100 kilometers per second. The fired projectiles could be collected by Near Earth Satellites or space stations and recycled as fuel after being slowed down in collection funnels with decelleration tubes by linear induction magnetic breaking processses wherein the kinetic energy of the projectiles could be recylced and stored in electrical charge capacitors and perhaps, ultimately, optionally stored in a series of counterotating flywheels as kinetic energy.

    The slugs could optionally be relauched to other manned interstellar space craft and collected by these space craft as fuel pods or be reflected back by controlled magnetic and/or electric reflecting fields produced by the space craft or collected and then relaunched back to the near Earth stations for fuel and/or relaunch.

    These fuel slugs could optionall be launched into nearby interstellar space and be used as fuel supplies for deep Oort cloud manned missions or even missions out to the nearest stars. If some of the fuel slugs where launched at the right velocities, say between 1,000 kilometers per second up to 100,000 kilometers per second (1/3 C) by huge electromagnetic guns from Earth Orbit or locations close by Earth orbit, then by sufficiently timed and controlled solar system exit velocities, the slugs could very closely match the velocity of the manned interstellar spacecraft catching up to the slugs and be used as rocket fuel, perhaps in large enough quantities, even chemical rocket fuel to power manned interstellar space craft from mildly to perhaps highly relativistic velocities with gamma factors approaching a half an order of magnitude above unity. Note that such space craft would not have to carry their own interstellar rocket fuel from the beginning and thus might, as a result of the effeciencies permitted by such a system , be more than able to reach velocities close to the speed of light, all with ordinary chemical fuels and chemical rockets.

    Such manned interstellar space craft could utilize magnetic breaking to slow down along with a supply of chemical fuel collected in route to the nearest stars for final velocity adjustments and slow down to the target star system.

    3) The use of a nuclear fuel pellot runway as such would enable much higher gamma factors and would be doable with much less stringnet pellot and craft velocity matching. The use of matter/antimatter slugs would allow even greater gamma factors yet with even less stringent space craft and pellot velocity matching velocity. Note that the fusion fuel pellots could be several orders of magnitude less in mass than the chemical fuel pellots and still be effective for reaching high gamma factors. Matter/Antimatter pellots could in theory be 2 orders of magnitude less massive than the nuclear fusion fuel pellots and still permit the same terminal gamma factors as the much more massive nuclear fusion fuel pellots would.

    That’s all for know.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

30. James M. Essig on November 1, 2007 at 21:21

    Hi George and Forrest;

    I just wanted to clarify that I am aware that the pellot runway idea was obviously developed before I even new what space was. However, I think it is a neat idea for its efficiency and possible allowance of chemical fuels for interstellar manned space flight. Thus, I felt the desire to comment on such potential practical technology for deep Oort Cloud and stellar neigberhood manned space travel.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

31. forrest noble on November 2, 2007 at 0:25

    George, a near-earth asteroid? What asteroid? Now you have me worried!

    On a positive note, as Jim suggested, the Chinese are planning a bunch of cool stuff. Russia wants to catch up on their economy but their “public will”, I believe, will not let them fall too far behind in the “space race” since they were first. India is hanging in there too. They’ve either developed or co-developed a number of their own satellites as well as ours and also have sub-contracted to Russia’s Space program. The EU has all kinds of great stuff they’ve achieved and have planned. Within 20 years maybe they’ll also be more players.

    All the above reasons should inspire competition and National pride which– I believe is what we need to improve the funding for our own programs. A big international space race; sounds good to me.

    your friend forrest

32. george scaglione on November 2, 2007 at 9:37

    jim,yes really cool ideas and practical to boot.thank you. a “space race” with china might really give us the “kick in the pants” we might be able to use at this juncture! lol worked with the ussr ! and…hyper sonic space planes such as you suggest are recieving alot of thought too! hope they are on the horizon! plus,yes i bet they are.also mass driver propulsion is a good idea too.i think i saved an article about that once and have it still somewhere in my files! seems crazy my friend but alot of the older ideas where and are really cool.ironically i was just talking with an engineer friend of mine about that very subject not awfully long ago! thank you and oort cloud HERE WE COME!!!! …..ALSO….. forrest,yes sir re bob!! very exciting as i just mentioned to jim…another space race? cool! bring it on! might be just the thing for getting us somewhere a little faster than we might other wise go.and lastly for now,what near earth asteroid? why none other than 99942 apohis one of the near earth asteroids that might hit us someday and is being considered for a visit from astronauts,hopefully in the not too distant future.such a study could only do us good no matter how you look at it.suggest you read popular science for november their cover story destination asteroid which begins on page 38! interesting stuff. ps don’t worry,no real danger FOR NOW,but,that is why we need the mission! its all covered in the article! thank you both very much and i hope to hear more from you very soon your friend george

33. forrest noble on November 3, 2007 at 17:32

    George, according to what I read, supposedly there’s a One in 45,000 chance Apophis will hit us in 2036. In 2036 I won’t even know my own name, let alone the comet’s name. My children and grandchildren hopefully will be space enthusiasts like me rather than worriers. A heavy particle beam like oxygen (for maybe a 96 hour period of continuous strikes) seemingly could divert a 250 meter diameter asteroid ( 2×10 to the 10th kg.) enough so that it “would never be a problem”.

    This is something that I thought was appropriate to our, inner solar system
    and someday interstellar aspirations. Nuclear powered spacecraft: Project Orion, was designed here in the U.S. in the late 50’s and early 60’s. It was a nuclear powered spacecraft that was designed to deliver mankind to Mars, and maybe the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. It was so encumbered by secrecy that until July of 1958 even the existence of the project remained publicly unknown. The project was dropped because of treaties with Russia.

    “Much of the record of Project Orion is still classified Secret & Restricted Data even though most of what kept the project secret in 1958 is now in the open, except for a few specific technical details. Any danger of Project Orion literature being used for destructive purposes is outweighed by the possibility that knowledge of Orion may be useful in ways that we cannot now predict or understand.”

    Sounds good to me.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis
    http://www.mediamatic.net/article-5868-en.html

    your friend forrest

34. forrest noble on November 3, 2007 at 18:33

    Hey Jim, the web page below seems like a good site on Pellet Stream/ Pellet Runway propulsion systems. I thought it was pretty interesting– and yet I never heard of it before. I should have. I guess I missed something else interesting to contemplate.

    yarchive.net/space/exotic/bussard_buzz-bomb.html

    your friend forrest

35. James M. Essig on November 3, 2007 at 23:13

    Hi George and Forrest;

    George, thanks for the enthusiasm and critical review of my previous posting. I completely agree that a lot of the older interstellar travel ideas were and still are really cool. With modern numerical space craft control technologies, advances in remote object detection (useful for detection of an object in the path of a would be space craft as such), and materials science, we just might head to the stars a little sooner than we might have otherwise thought, especially if environmental degradation, over population, and competition from other nations spurs us on to greatly revamp and reinvigorate our manned space program to find new homes for humanity.

    Forrest, thanks for the information on project Orion and the URL for the pellet runway site. I will have to read it tomorrow, sounds very interesting to review the concept again. It seems like a lot of the older interstellar travel concepts could be brought to fruition with some minor evolution of today’s technology and space access infrustructure. The really cool thing is that a lot of these concepts could be doable without any new physics. Plain old special relativity, nuclear physics, classical electrodynamics, visible light through radiofrequency based remote sensing, modern radiation shelding materials and high strength refractory alloys and composite material etc., it seems would be all we need to build large space arks capable of 0.1 C to 0.15 C or perhaps faster which could take us to any of the nearby stars in less than a normal useful human working lifespan and much farther out with the same terminal velocities for cases where the human lifespan was medically significantly lengthened.

    These are very interesting times indeed that we live in.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

36. george scaglione on November 4, 2007 at 13:58

    forrest,a one in 45,000 chance!? yeah i think you should not worry! however by then i sincerely hope we will have developed spacecraft sufficiently to be able to do something about it in any event if it turns out that we need to!! / forrest and jim,wanted to make a similar comment to both of you so i thought that it would make sense to blend the two,in my opinion in the relatively near future we might be able to use some of those good “old” ideas like the original one for the original project orion…ONLY BETTER if we mix in some modern day tech that we did’nt have back there inthe 50’s !! pretty cool and i hope we get the chance to do it. but not of course ,under the gun with a big asteroid bearing down on us!!! everybody enjoy the rest of the weekend and keep on thinking ! talk to you in the new week your friend george

37. forrest noble on November 6, 2007 at 2:59

    Hi Guys,

    Concerning the Orion Project: Even though I looked at the design I don’t see how it could work without a lot of neutron radiation in its exhaust. That’s O.K. maybe for a space vehicle but seemingly not so good for a craft that would take off from Earth. It seems feasible they could design around that problem but not sure they could do it without a lot more R & D. It also looked way too crowded for an extended flight in time– like to Mars for instance. Think we’d have to make something much bigger and probably a lot more expensive unfortunately.

    Concerning Pellet Stream propulsion: According to the concept they were proposing the rocket/ spaceship reacts with a pellet stream “laid down” before hand whereby the spaceship is traveling at a very high speed, say .01C and the impact with the pellet stream creates fusion. To get to that speed they would need another form of propulsion. In a reverse take on this design, a satellite could project a particle beam downward through the center of the ship (same as the previous design) at maybe 1/4C, and depending on the materials and speeds the ship could be, in the same general design, fusion powered or fission powered. It’s harder and less efficient (more expensive) I think to send a beam down than to send one up but both designs seemingly could work on both fission or fusion.

    As for now I’m sticking with the beam-up fission design. I think it could be designed, tested and manufactured a lot sooner. all for now

    Your friend forrest

38. george scaglione on November 6, 2007 at 9:52

    forrest, i do not think that the orion project as originally posited was ever designed to take off from earth!oh brother! no way! but as a pure space craft/star ship all the radiation and destructive force it would unleach would probably be “harmlessly absorbed” by the VAST empty distances of space! as to the other… i must admit i do not quite follow the concept of the “laid down” pellet stream but i would be happy if you could explain it to me because right now (in my mind) it does not seem to make any logical sense. anyway thank you very much and i hope we can talk again soon.your friend george

39. forrest noble on November 6, 2007 at 15:16

    George, I’m sure you’re right concerning the Orion Project, a spacecraft only!

    Jim, George:: According to the concept of Pellet Stream propulsion, as I understand it, they were proposing the spaceship would impact a “pellet stream”/ “pellet runway” projected as a particle-beam of some sort many years in advance of the space flight (conceivably even when the spaceship was still being developed) by a “particle cannon”, from Earth, the Moon, Satellite, etc., at a speed of lets say no more than 200,000 mph (a relatively slow particle beam). Whereby the spaceship would accelerate to catch up to the beam traveling at a very minimum impact speed of lets say .000001C (to get to that speed they would need another form of propulsion). The impact of the ships fuel, which accordingly would be accessible through a center orifice, with the pellet stream would accordingly create the heat for nuclear fusion, continually accelerating the ship to its max. potential, then using the same impact fusion to provide reverse thrust to slow the ship down when needed.

    To get things going “now” concerning space travel (as I mentioned) I’m pushing for the development of an “oxygen-particle-beam craft” using conventional liquid fuels with beamed oxygen. I hope to talk to Mike Minovitch in the near future, as I mentioned, concerning this idea.

    Your friend forrest

40. James M. Essig on November 6, 2007 at 15:39

    Hi George and Forrest;

    Thanks for the postings and wise concil.

    One way that a project Orion like ship could be launched is by moving out into interplanetary space safely away from the Earth and then to start the detonation of nuclear bombs behind the space crafts pusher plate at a safe distance from the plate. The high mass specific energy yield W-87 Warhead at 300 kilotons yield (30 times the most recent estimated yield of the Hiroshima bomb explosion) and the W-88 Warhead at 475 kilotons would make ideal devices to propell huge Orion type stars ships with rest masses in the millions to tens of millions of metric tons range.

    If pure fusion nuclear bombs can be developed (and work is alledgedly being done to develope them and/or at least to study their feasibility), then much less fuel payload would be required to reach velocities of 0.1C to 0.4C thus permitting practical starships that could visit any of the nearby stars out to a radius of 15 lightyears within a normal human generation of family life Earth time. Magnetic breaking could be utilized to slow the starships down with some additional fuel for final velocity and trajectory correction.

    Note that today’s nuclear warheads have a much higher yield per unit of overall warhead mass than those of the 1950’s when the plans for Orion were drawn up so that considerably higher velocities could be reached with a given payload of today’s warheads than could be reached by the warheads developed in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Note that open literature states that the W-87 warhead has a weight of 440 pounds to 600 pounds while the W-88 warhead probably wieghs less than 800 pounds. The bonb that was dropped on Hiroshima at 10 kilotons was roughly 10 times heavier at about 10,000 pounds with the result that the W-87 and W-88 warheads have about 300 to 500 times the mass specific yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

    Thus, I think Project Orion revamped would make an excellent space craft to reach any of the nearby stars within a generation of normal human family life with respect to the Earth’s reference frame.

    I will have more to post on this topic this evening.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

41. Administrator on November 6, 2007 at 16:10

    There are various pellet concepts, the fusion runway being just one of them. Clifford Singer came up with the original notion, in which the pellet stream replaces the stream of photons from a laser or the charged particles in a beam. The pellets would be vaporized into a plasma when reaching the vehicle, then directed back as a plasma exhaust. In some variations, the pellets are captured by the vehicle and used in a fusion engine. Gerald Nordley added a number of significant things to this concept, including using nanotech to make the pellets self steering, thus keeping the beam collimated.

    This is not the same thing as the fusion runway, which as far as I know goes back to Jordin Kare’s work. Kare dubbed it the ‘Bussard buzz bomb.’ The idea is that impact fusion is achieved by having the spacecraft overtake a previously placed runway of pellets, with fusion possible if the spacecraft could reach 200 km/sec. One nice thing about Kare’s idea, which he presented at a JPL workshop, is that it’s fairly scalable, depending on the number of pellets.

42. george scaglione on November 6, 2007 at 16:39

    jim and forrest,thank you both very much for your interesting and informative postings. i am getting to like this pellet runway concept more and more! also it might not be a bad idea to bring back and update that original orion project idea we all seem to like! ……….paul,THANK YOU TOO very much for your aded commentary on this great pellet runway concept ! i think i had heard of it before but never really paid attention (believe it or not!) before today! well,jim forrest,paul,here is wishing you all the best and i hope i hear again soon from any or all of you. sincerely,your friend george ps one more thing all and i am not sure if this would be an advance or not?! but could not the pellets also be put in place in space by a spacecraft moving relatively slowly for a long time by simply droping off a stream of pellets as it goes?! obviously,would need to be launched WELL in advance of the mission! not at all sure as i say if that idea is all that good or not but as always i’d like to hear opinions. thanks again and hope to hear from you all soon again,as always your friend george

43. James M. Essig on November 7, 2007 at 2:51

    Hi George and Paul;

    Paul;

    Thanks for the information and the distinctiions pointed out about the various run way concepts. These concepts seem like potentially very good candidates for our first or second tier starship generations given that a starship using the runway technologies would not need to carry large quantities of fuel thus allowing the star ships to reach relativistic velocities perhaps much easier than ships that carry their fusion fuel with them.

    George;

    I have some additional ideas regarding project Orion like space craft as I promised in my previous posting.

    The first idea involves simply deploying the nuclear warheads as a stable thermonuclear runway wherein a large number of such warheads would be laid out ahead of the space craft and detonated behind the space craft against a pusher plate at a distance for safety. If each warhead could add 10 meters per second to the craft on average up to a moderately relativistic velocity of say .866 C , the number of the warheads that would be needed to reach a gamma factor of 2 would total about 25 million, which is a lot but not terribly so. Using the W-88 warheads would permit a total deployed warhead mass of only about 10 million metric tons (which is a lot) but much less than the mass of fusion fuel carried on board a large interstellar spacecraft that would be required to reach such a velocity. I can imagine that space craft within the range of a thousand metric tons could be brought to a gamma factor of nearly two with the use of W-88 warheads if better than half of their energy yield could be converted to shipbased kinetic translational energy. Note that the W-88 Warhead most probably converts about 0.01 percent of its rest mass to kinetic energy.

    If pure fusion devices were used instead, then the 10 million metric tons of pellets could bring a 100,000 metric tons space craft to a gamma factor of roughly 2 with if the same effeciency is assumed. A 1,000 metric ton space craft could be accellerated to a gamma factor of roughly 2 with just 100,000 metric tons of such pellets.

    If matter antimatter pellets are somehow utilitzed, then the 10 million metric tons of pellots could bring a 10 million metric tons space craft to a gamma factor of roughly 2 assumming the same effeciency. A 1,000 metric ton space craft could be accellerated to a gamma factor of roughly 2 with just 1,000 metric tons of such pellets

    Each of the above senarios would probably require some serious advances in materials science in terms of extremely refractive materials, materials of extremely high heat capacity, and materials of great mechanical strength properties. However, given that we have gone from relatively weak leather hide to Zylon which is a Kevlar like compound with a tensile strength of roughly 500,000 to 800,000 PSI to proposed pure carbon nanotube materials with tensile strengths that might be as much as ten times that of Zylon and 60 times greater than steel, perhaps the materials scientists can cook something up that could work in the comming decades. If not, then one could simply greatly increase the mass of the space craft for adequate energy absorbing capacities or increase the number of warheads laid out, or simply greatly reduce the yield of the warheads used but use many more of them.

    In order to effeciently channel nuclear or matter/antimatter blasts to the pusher plate of such space craft, perhaps directed energy nuclear devices couls be utilized that direct most of their energy in a relatively narrow beam.
    Such devices have long been rumored to have been researched and/or designed. Devices that would produce most of their energy in the form of gamma rays might be highly desirable because the gamma rays could easily catch up to the space craft at even high gamma factors since the gamma rays travel at C and could in theory overtake any sub light space craft given enough distance traveled and therefor enough time of transit.

    For fusion runway or matter antimatter runway type pellet configurations, space craft utilizing such might have pusher plates that get hot very quick; perhaps very hot after absorbing ionizing radiation from just one bomb explosion. Therefor, it might be possible to ulitlize this thermal energy to drive effecient turboelectric systems, thermoelectric systems, etc, for producing electrical energy to power onboard ion rockets, electric rockets, magnetohydrodynamicplasma drives, electrohydrodynamicplasma drives, or electromagnetohydrodynamic plasma drives that utilize on board ion sources as a reaction mass or perhaps more appropriately, interstellar ionized gas as a reaction mass wherein the gas utilized as such would be drawn from the interstellar medium as the craft continued to accellerate.

    Another option would be to use such electrical power generation means to power fusion mode interstellar ramjets wherein interstellar hydrogen and/or helium would be collected and fused to provide extra thrust for the accellerating space craft.

    Such space craft could use magnetic breaking to slow down upon reaching their nearby or distant stellar destinations with some onboard fission, fusion, matter/amtimatter, or perhaps even some chemical rocket fuel for final deceleration processes and flight path corrections.

    That’s all for now.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

44. george scaglione on November 7, 2007 at 10:13

    jim thank you good ideas on the orion space craft concept! you know maybe just maybe someday we will do it after all!! i mean we are progressing rather slowly as per good ideas first we go to the moon,then…we abandon the moon…then we try to re do apollo …to go back to the moon!!! or,we get a good idea like orion about 50 years ago,then we abandon it,then we think errr ahhh well maybe we can go back to that too!!! ROFLOL, almost nutty no? but thank you very much and i hope to hear again soon.your friend george

45. James M. Essig on November 8, 2007 at 13:44

    Hi George;

    Thanks for the kind and encouraging comments.

    A few more interstellar travel ideas occured to me over the previous few days.

    1) The first idea involves inducing linear or substantially linear magnetic flux patterns within the general interstellar or general intergalactic magnetic fields in which a craft will then travel. Such a craft would utilize onboard magnetic field production and adjustment technology to produce increadibly strong magnetic fields external to the craft for use in reaction against the enhanced magnetic field gradients set up within the local interstellar or intergalactic plasma.

    The enhanced magnetic fields might be produced via magnetic flux compression techniques wherein a given region of space occupied by magnetic field producing charged plasma would have its magnetic flux density increased by constricting the flux lines by interstellar plasma current density compression technigues. Note that magnetic flux compression techniques are used to produce extremely high magnetic field intensities for use in research and in conventional electromagnetic pulse weapons.

    One additional way that the extremely relative high flux densities in the interstellar or intergalctic medium might be produced involves inducing vorticies in the charge plasma as such in such a manner that a linear magnetic field could be produced along a axis of the natural seloniod in much the same fashion that such magnetic fields are produced in current technological soleniods.

    Methods by which the interstellar and/or intergalactic magnetic fields might be perturbed for the above purposes include among other things the very judicious placement of huge numbers of nuclear bombs, matter/antimatter bombs, and the like to induce compressional currents or eddy currents within the flow of the gas and dust within localized interstellar and/or intergalactic medium. If the concept of chaos theory could be used to set up initial conditions whereby the requisite turbulent flow patterns of interstellar charged dust and plasma could be produced or maintained to produce the significantly enhanced magnetic flux densities desired by way of the production of any final flux density patterns’ extreme sensitivity on initial conditions, then perhaps the required or desired flux density patterns and magnitudes as well as the spatial temporal extent of such patterns could be appropriately maintained to allow effective magnetic propulsion by interstellar or intergalactic spacecraft.

    2) Another idea involves the concentration of interstellar gas for use as fusion fuel and reaction mass for interstellar ramjets, ion rockets, electron rockets and magnetohydrodynamicplasma drives, electrohydrodynamicplasma drives, or electromagnetohydrodynamic plasma drives. Such interstellar dust might be concentrated through simmillar means or analogous methods used to compress the magnetic flux densities within the interstellar medium by methods described above. Once again, the use of nemerous explosive devices and chaotic sensitivity on initial conditions of the desired interstellar gas concentrations might be utilized here.

    In both items 1) and 2) above, it might be possible to perturb the interstellar medium and/or local intergalactic medium through the use of beamed energy instead of the deployment of explosive devices. The beams would need to have extreme power and lengthy duration in order to perturb the interstellar and/or intergalactic medium significantly enough to produce that large scale magnetic flux density patterns and/or the interstellar gas densities required or desired for facilitating manned interstellar and/or intergalactic starships.

    If the energy of starlight could be harnessed for this purpose, then the need to collect fuel to power the beam systems could be largely alleviated. Note that pressure from starlight, outgasing of stars through their stellar wind emmission processes, stellar birth process, protostar evolutionary processes, and nova and supernova explosions all contribute to the formation of turbulent flow patterns within the interstellar medium within galaxies and therefor in the production of magnetic field patterns and flux densities within the interstellar medium. As you can see, very large scale phenomena are at work here with very large energy and mass distributions envolved in the current natural evolution of the magnetic field patterns and dust and gas concentrations within the Milky Way Galaxy and all other galaxies as well as in the more rarified intergalactic medium. So any significant and effective anthropocentric contributions to such patterns would require a space based and general energy generation infrastructure many more orders of magnitude greater than our current infrastructures as such even in consideration of any interstellar and/or intergalactic magnetic flux patterns and gas and dust density distributions sensitivity on initial conditions. However, as we evolve into a planetary, then stellar, then galactic engineering civilization in the coming thousands through millions of years, projects such as those described above and others of simmillar magnitude including ones that we have not yet considered may become possible.

    Note that even with space based magnetic flux density enhancement effects, the intensity of the resulting magnetic fields would still be several orders of magnitude less than those of even the weakest permanent magnets commercially produced. Therefor, the ship based reactive magnetic fields would have to be extremely strong to provide timely accelleration of the interstellar space craft. Perhaps one way around the resulting dillemae would be to utilize magnetic sail techniques inorder for the craft to effectively span a large cross sub-section of the intensified magnetic flux patterns artificially produced. For this purpose, a very large low mass magnetic membrane or sheet might be deployed which may optionally be mostly empty space or mesh like for further mass reduction. Alternatively, a magnetic plasma sail which utilizes a surrounding magnetic plasma bottle that extends far from the craft may be used to span a greater sub-cross-section of the magnetic flux patterns thereby providing more reactive force to propell the space craft.

    Note that the on craft magnetic field generation systems might be powered by fission, fusion, or matter/antimatter reactors. Any fusion fuel for powering the magnetic field generators on board the ship may optionally be collected from the interstellar and/or intergalactic medium in the form of hydrogen or helium. Alternatively, the fuel could be beamed to the craft from a remote location or laid out ahead of time in the form of a fuel runway wherein the fuel would consist of nuclear fission, fusion, or matter/antimatter fuel. Yet another option would entail beaming of electromagnetic energy and/or massive particle based kinetic energy to the craft from remote locations. The energy required to produce the beams could optionally be derived from starlight, the cosmic backgroung radiation, or from other sources such as from supplies of fusionable fuel that exist in planetary or cometary sources or even from the interstellar medium itself.

    That’s all for now.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

46. forrest noble on November 8, 2007 at 21:51

    Hi Jim,

    As to your first idea, I think within most galaxies we will someday find “highways” where we can use natural atomic particle streams/ “electrical currents” to provide fuel/ energy for a ships propulsion system using both particle charge and energy.

    In the same way, your second idea, interstellar gas concentrations are very high in certain parts of most galaxies. Hydrogen alone can provide fuel for a pellet-style fusion reactor.

    A magnetic laser may be theoretically possible. That device, if it were ever developed, would change the world forever, not all for the good of humanity. But there would be many uses for it I can imagine in spacecraft propulsion systems.

    George, your question concerning how we might “lay down” instead of projecting a pellet stream– we could have a spacecraft that feasibly would be able to do that but I can’t think of any way more efficient/ less expensive than a “slow” projected particle beam.

    Your friend forrest

47. James M. Essig on November 8, 2007 at 23:20

    Hi Forrest and George;

    Another interplanetary manned spacecraft propulsion method occured to me that would utilize systems of counter-rotating rotors made of bulk materials of carbon with the strength of the strongest carbon nanotubes. I estimate that such rotors should be capable of having an outer rotational velocity of about 10 kilometers per second.

    The energy of the rotors could be converted into electrical energy for powering effecient ion or electron rockets or the rotors could be designed to have a modularity wherein at certain rotational positions, the rotors release part of their mass as a momentum release mechanism wherein the rotors would gradually shead their entire or almost their entire mass in a rotationally symmetric manner inorder to reduce vibrations based on rotor assymetry as they shrink. The spacecraft could optionally incorporate rotor stages just as chemical rockets due for added velocity increases.

    Another form of very futuristic rotor for electrodynamic energy conversion or mass release based momentum transfer propulsion involves the concept of using solid neutronium as a rotor. Such rotors exist in nature in the form of neutrons stars with rotational velocities as great as 1/3 C if not greater, however, no doubt that these neutron stars’ self gravitation help prevent them from flying apart with the result being that the neutron stars stability and strength is not completely based on the binding energy between the nucleons that compose them. Still, I would imagine that relativistic velocities could be reached by employing macroscopic neutronium rotors in the form of electrodynamic turbines or mass release momentum transfer techniques.

    Another form of rotor would involve solid quarkonium rotors which I believe could be made to spin at a faster rate than the neutronium versions thus permitting higher gamma values for spacrcraft utilizing them in simmilar manners to that of neutronium and carbon nanotube rotors described above.

    Blackholes perhaps might be used as an ultimate form of rotor as such becuase that maximum theoretical rate of angular rotation of a blackhole is C at its event horizon, in practice C- e where e can be made as small as one wishes.

    An intermediary step between carbon nanotubes and solid neutronium might be some form of white dwarf density like material which perhaps could be utilized in stages to achieve very mildly relativistic velocities for space craft such as long trip duration generation manned space arks to the nearby stars.

    The rotors might optionally be spun up ahead of time before the missions are launched or they could optionally be restocked with energy via star light capture, electromagnetic energy beams directed to the enroute spacecraft, massive particle kinetic energy transfer beams or beams of fuel in the form of fission, fusion, and/or matter/antimatter fuel. The energy might optionally come from the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) or from fusion fuel collected from the interstellar medium in the form of hydrogen and/or helium. Ideally, perhaps the zero point fields could be tapped to provide energy to spin up the rotors and/or restock their kinetic energy as it becomes depleted.

    Other propulsion systems that might optionally be powered by such rotors include magnetohydrodynamicplasma drives, electrohydrodynamicplasma drives, or electromagnetohydrodynamic plasma drives, photon drives, warp drives, antigravity propulsion systems, electrogravatic propulsion systems, and gravitational field and/or electromagnetic field based teleportation systems if these later nonreactionary propulsions systems are possible or practical.

    For rotors of extreme velocity, care would need to be taken so that they would not catastrophically fail resulting in huge explosions that could destroy the space craft.

    Perhaps white dwarf dense, neutronium, quarkonium, and miniblackhole rotors could be distributed along a interstellar run way for energy extraction by approaching, proximate, and/or passing manned interstellar spacecraft.

    That’s all for now.

    Thanks;

    Your Friend Jim

48. george scaglione on November 9, 2007 at 10:09

    jim, that magnetic field drive idea you posted above is really cool and i’ll bet that yes we will eventually get around to something like that!! the fact that some work has already been done in that area is a real PLUS too! also, i like the concept of the rotor drive you talk about above as well………..forrest,i liked your response to jims idea above.such “highways” are probably waiting for us now. i wonder if anyone currently uses them? you know its a funny thing i was just saying the other day: we humans so often disagree,fight etc. that if we ever met truly alien species which had nothing to do with us in any way,what hope would we have of a good relationship with THEM!!!??? lastly forrest,what you said about the pellet stream above,yes you are probably right. thank you both and i hope i will hear back soon your friend george

49. forrest noble on November 9, 2007 at 23:24

    Hi Jim,

    Plasma drives could have seemingly innumerable variations where as you start with atomic or molecular material, and through its breakdown, bombardment, fission or fusion you obtain a plasmoidal exhaust of propulsion. Many different possibilities exist if we build the craft in space or maybe on the moon.

    The primary problem that I envision is not the propulsion system, but the “protection systems” that may be needed once we get to hopefully .1 C. Whatever that max. speed turns out to be– then we may need some “wilder stuff”.

    It seems to me with just present technologies and new craft designs we’ll be able to go out and about within say 10-15 years after we decide to fund such projects. Russia recently announced they’re slowly going back into the “space race”. Keep the players coming, I say, to get our “donkey” in gear.

    George, your aliens, I think, will work with us and we with them possibly someday if we can find them, or visa versa, and if both parties
    can envision an advantage– meaning hopefully that mankind (as well as the other animals on Earth) wouldn’t be just another great new protein source for them, or another new planet for expansion, or that we don’t try to take too much advantage of them and have them “unload” on us, right?

50. george scaglione on November 10, 2007 at 11:25

    forrest, i think you are right in what you say about plasma drives above.only real problem,to deceide to go ahead and do it ! and yes,the more people who are working on space the better.especially “if it forces us to get our donkey in gear” !!! but,about those aliens,gotta say i was thinking about really alien aliens!!! see i have proved my own point.we do not even know them yet and already they are causing problems!! lol and thanks for the swift reply your friend george