28 replies to this topic

[tank50us]

Ok, we've all seen science fiction movies that involve large interstellar ships capable of moving between systems. In my mind, it should be possible then to build such ships, and we technically have the technology to build them (it's just a matter of getting them to go to Pluto and back within a couple hours rather then years). In your mind, what do you think the first starship will look like, it's function, and above all, how the hell will it be powered.

My theory is that Starships will be similar in shape to modern day submarines, but much larger depending on class and purpose. Warships will typically have a detachment of Marines at all times to facilitate inspections of cargo ships, and to act as guards for ambassadors to other worlds. Such ships will also contain a small air wing to deal with smaller threats to the ship (like fighters and bombers). FTL Travel will likely come from an alliance with another race that has already perfected the technology (either by alliance, crashed ship with FTL drive intact, etc.) As for weapons, our warships would likely be armed with an assortment of Projectile based weaponry (big guns, Railguns, etc), missiles, and Self-defense weapons. They will also be built modular, to make repairs easier, and keep construction costs down. Each ship will contain a shielding system designed to create a miniature atmosphere around the ship itself, enabling the any hanger bays to keep the doors open in heavy combat (since fighters will need to return to rearm and refuel on a regular basis). As for the crew, all hands will be well drilled, like with modern day ships, in order to keep the ship in the fight as long as possible. (this includes fire fighter training, hull repair, and other damage control tasks).

Now that I've explained my vision, lets hear yours.

[BeefJeRKy]

I believe the approach taken in Mass Effect is a fairly attractive one regarding intrastellar and interstellar travel. In that future, a strange element called element zero is discovered. When a current of electricity is passed through, it emits dark energy fields and is able to either reduce or increase the mass of objects within the field through what is dubbed the Mass effect. This development alongside the advance of lightweight ion thrusters allows for the development of FTL travel. However, the use of the drive core builds up a static charge on the hull of a ship, so ships have to discharge the hull which is usually done by parking the ship in the magnetic field of a planet.

Basically all ships have a drive core which is an element zero core proportional to the size of the ship. One special ship the SSV Normandy, a stealth frigate has a drive core 2-3x larger than the normal core for a ship of that size. This allows it to either travel at FTL for much longer or to travel without the use of its engines which allows for "silent running". When silent running, the ship also traps heat emissions in special internal heat sinks. Of course using this for too long would simply fry the crew. Of course even at FTL speeds, the galaxy is too large for travel. Most ships use extremely ancient but highly advanced "mass relays" left behind by the Protheans which allow for the travel between various star systems.

Basically, if you are really enthralled by games with copious amounts of lore, Mass Effect is a game I highly recommend.

As for my thoughts to whether FTL travel can happen, I am unsure if Einstein's relativity theories will stand strong when actually tested. If the Higgs-Boson does indeed exist and sports the ability to control mass, maybe we will be able to colonize other planets. However, we don't have the resources to build ships to get into space right now.

EDIT : I'd like to add that before we get into space, the concept of fighting will have to be eliminated. We hopefully won't ever need space based warships.

Edited by Scope, 02 April 2009 - 21:03.

[NergiZed]

This isn't science, this is just baseless speculation; this topic doesn't belong here at all.

Quote

..and we technically have the technology to build them (it's just a matter of getting them to go to Pluto and back within a couple hours rather then years)...

America's even stuggling to back to the friggn' moon, and you're here talking about going to Pluto at FTL? We don't have anything that can go FTL; we don't even have any solid theories to go FTL; we just started to use ion engines for primary propulsion. (we had mainly used them to stablize satilites)

Quote

FTL Travel will likely come from an alliance with another race that has already perfected the technology (either by alliance, crashed ship with FTL drive intact, etc.)

I won't deny the fact that there's an iinfinitesimally small chance that that will happen, but still, that asumption is just silly.

Unless you're being sarcastic, this is very much just a childish fantasy.

However, if this isn't serious,I think space ships will looks like big discs with with perpendicular pylons attached to them. The pylons would be the engines. or the 'warp drive'. It would be their form of FTL travel, as they would bend space around them instead of moving dircetly through it. They'd have this beam weapons, but instead of lasers, they'd be called phasers, cause they're transphasic. They'd also have torpedoes filled with high-energy photons called 'photon torpedoes'. There would also be minimal need for firearmsm and combat armor, because the ship is just so kick-ass and deadly. There would be a bunch of seemingly random blinky lights all over the ships, and a bunch of buttons that don't do much of anything. Also, all aliens look like humans with a bad skin disease. Yes, that would be


Now back to a more serious note. I think spaceships in the near future, especially those traveling in the outer solar system will be unmanned. I think that's probably one of the most obvious statments anbody can make. The matter of fact is, it takes a lot of energy and space to support human life, and when it comes down to it, there's very little reason for a human to go all the way out there in space. There isn't a single experiment that a human can do that a robot can't. (unless it's about the effects of microgravity on humans) I personally think spcae exploration is important, but at the moment, even if some would like to believe otherwise, it's a little premature for safe, meaningful human exploration of space.

Unmanned space exploration will continue to advance and will likely become more reusable. Instead of just throwing pieces of expensive machinery into space, we could have them fly to the intended target, execute a specific mission, and fly back to be refitted and refueled for the next mission.

I think one of the more advanced-looking space orbiters is the canceled JIMO (Juipiter Icy Moon Orbiter) pictured here and here. Ofcourse, it's probably just because of the shape of the solar wings, but still, it looks cool. It would've had an ion thruster powered by a nuclear fission reactor. It was an ambisious project, that required mutiple launch orbital assembly. Due to budgeting issues, it was canceled in 2005.

There's my two cents.

[Dauth]

Not happening without infinite energy, it breaks special relativity.

Though the time dilation would reduce journey times.

[Rich19]

This should go in the writing forum. It's not science, it's fantasy/sci-fi fiction writing.

FTL travel is impossible. We are not going to get a FTL drive from another race. A spaceship is not going to crash into us. We do not have the technology to build such ships (the ISS is about our limit at the moment, and the Russians and Americans are currently having a standoff about the use of each other's toilets. I kid you not.). We are nowhere near getting people to Mars, let alone Pluto. Go back to playing Sins of a Solar Empire.

As to what I think they will eventually be like, look at current ocean-going ships, and cross those with submarines.

[DerKrieger]

Scope, on 2 Apr 2009, 21:55, said:

I believe the approach taken in Mass Effect is a fairly attractive one regarding intrastellar and interstellar travel. In that future, a strange element called element zero is discovered. When a current of electricity is passed through, it emits dark energy fields and is able to either reduce or increase the mass of objects within the field through what is dubbed the Mass effect. This development alongside the advance of lightweight ion thrusters allows for the development of FTL travel. However, the use of the drive core builds up a static charge on the hull of a ship, so ships have to discharge the hull which is usually done by parking the ship in the magnetic field of a planet.

Basically all ships have a drive core which is an element zero core proportional to the size of the ship. One special ship the SSV Normandy, a stealth frigate has a drive core 2-3x larger than the normal core for a ship of that size. This allows it to either travel at FTL for much longer or to travel without the use of its engines which allows for "silent running". When silent running, the ship also traps heat emissions in special internal heat sinks. Of course using this for too long would simply fry the crew. Of course even at FTL speeds, the galaxy is too large for travel. Most ships use extremely ancient but highly advanced "mass relays" left behind by the Protheans which allow for the travel between various star systems.

Basically, if you are really enthralled by games with copious amounts of lore, Mass Effect is a game I highly recommend.

Yea, I thought Mass Effect did a good job in explaining the science behind the setting.

[CommanderJB]

*Warning: significant patience and interest required in order to penetrate the below wall of text.*

I'm optimistic that flaws can be found in Einstein, or at the very least, that he can be bypassed. It is perhaps one of the only pieces of hopeless optimism I allow myself, but I find it preferable to believing we'll be stuck here forever.
As to the methods, I haven't a clue. I've toyed with the idea of a faster-than-light particle being discovered which, when projected in a 'shield', would allow a craft to 'slip' through otherwise normal space at superluminal velocities, but I'm aware that this has more holes than the average colander and so am not particularly keen to investigate further. I don't really like the idea of wormholes/black holes/other devices which take us 'through the fabric of the universe' into some kind of 'otherspace' (a) because I think they're overused and (b) because I've yet to see any basis whatsoever for the claims of cosmologists as to the nature of the universe which would supposedly make it possible. I just don't think that, at the moment at least, we're equipped to understand it, and while it's not necessarily futile to try, I'd much prefer that we actually find something like this before making up some of the unbelievable theories I've heard about altering the nature of the universe and even creating new ones (yes, really) as if it was as simple as poking a hole in a sheet of rubber.

Starships themselves I have a rather better idea as to the nature of. Firstly I'd like to say that the popular conception of space warfare that I have seen everywhere as a sort of aerial battle in vacuum is just so wrong it's hard to know where to start. It's fundamentally simple physics that govern them, yet I just can't think of an occasion on which a space battle (or spaceflight in general, though 2001 might come close) has been portrayed accurately. Opposing forces in space will likely be very small in number and moreover must obey the laws of physics, infinitely more powerful than any engine. You can't just pull the nose up and go up - as there is no drag in space you will never lose energy in your line of motion unless you actively resist it with your own engines. In order to turn your vector (not your nose, which can be easily done with gyros, or more wastefully positioning rockets) in space, you can do one of two things; let gravity do it for you (which takes kind of a while and works great over long distances, but isn't much good in a battle) or flip your entire ship around and apply thrust contrary to your line of motion with your main engines.

Deep space warfare would, I imagine, be more of a scenario akin to a drive-by shooting between two cars travelling at several kilometres per second taking place at a distance of millions of kilometres than an actual battle mix-up at close range with ships flitting everywhere. Orbital battle would be different, and likely more prevalent, but even then it's just not a simple issue, as you still have to deal with the problem of actually turning your ship around again if you intend to manoeuvre. Ion engines don't provide good acceleration (totally lousy acceleration in fact) and rockets are totally unsustainable from a fuel point of view. Plasma engines are an interesting tech that will bear more investigation, and solar sails are great for interplanetary/interstellar use (if you have the several hundred years to spare and no pressing need to stop on the way - or when you get there). But none of them are particularly great for whizzing around changing one's direction of flight on a whim like an X-Wing or Defiant-class.

Another eternal whinge of mine is the constant references to 'top speed' as if you could race spaceships as if they were in the Red Bull Air Races. You will keep on getting faster and faster for eternity so long as you keep your engines on, but it's stopping that's the problem. If you want to get there as fast as possible, keeping your engines on all the time, then half a space flight would be spent with the ship facing away from its destination using its engines to slow down for eventual orbital insertion. To quote Mr. Clarke, carrying enough fuel to slow down when you get there doesn't just double the problem, it squares it - in order to propel double the weight at the same acceleration, you must carry double the fuel, which you must then slow down as well. As such solar sails, requiring as they do no more propellant mass than sunlight, are a rather attractive option for the acceleration leg, but they wouldn't be very appropriate for warships, and are a long way outside our current practical technological reach.

That little (actually not-so-little-at-all-but-oh-well) rant out the way, I will now move to their actual design. The major concern will be weight. Even if/when we get a cheap surface-to-orbit lifting capability in the form of a space elevator (and by the time they charge freight fares, no matter the operating cost, even it won't be that cheap), the fact remains that in order to make a craft with the best possible acceleration and economy you'd want to use as little in the way of materials as possible. As a result I doubt as to whether we'll see the faired spaceships so popular in science fiction, with their huge rear engines and inexplicable asymmetry in three dimensions (there is no up or down in space!).

I am exceptionally doubtful if we'll ever see 'starfighters' of the sort even more popular - making a fighting ship is hard enough to start with, making a spaceship is harder again, making the two meet is nigh impossible, and then trying to package all of that inside ten metres is just asking for trouble of the worst sort. There'd just be no point. What would there be for them to fight? Other fighters? The point being? I suspect the weaponry required to take out a large (read: practical) spaceship would be beyond what a ten-metre-long 'spaceframe' could provide, and the ships themselves would be so fragile (no room - by which I mean available mass - for real armour, and you can't outrun light/electromagnetic waves or missiles that are smaller and faster than you are).

Armoured coverings I would consider likely to be replaced at least initially by active defence systems, and for when we do finally move to directed energy weapons, reflective coatings and magnetic shielding fields are still far more effective than actual metal/composite armour, though it's probable it will be installed in crew compartments et cetera. For this reason I expect early space warfare to be an extremely lethal game of Missile Command as much as anything else, with a heavy emphasis on new technologies not so easily countered by CIWS/THEL-type weapons, the latter of which should be nearly foolproof given a few more decades of development. But missiles and guns (particularly the latter, with electromagnetic assistance, as they are far smaller and more practical to carry than huge stocks of missiles, but will probably use 'guided shells' that have small positional thrusters - becoming in effect almost a halfway point between the two - to avoid being wasted by a simple bit of movement in a third dimension on their target's part) will likely be far too convenient to pass up for a little while yet.

Phew, I think I've exhausted myself for the moment. I may add more later!

Edited by CommanderJB, 03 April 2009 - 01:06.

[G-sus]

simple: not gonna happen. that kinda buries the chance of any (living) human going further away than mars... >_>

[NergiZed]

G-sus, on 2 Apr 2009, 18:58, said:

simple: not gonna happen. that kinda buries the chance of any (living) human going further away than mars... >_>

I think you can say, not gonna happen in the near future, and not gonna happen in your lifetime, but you can't say that it won't happen ever. There's always a possibility. (Just think, we know how fusion works, but we've yet to build a fusion reactor that has a net gain in energy.)

[G-sus]

well, there´s this thing called physics (it really exists, ask dauth ), and it got certain rules.
about most of them state: "no, not gonna happen".
what really means "no, not gonna happen.". you couldnt build a perpetuum mobile either, no matter how advanced you try.
the "in many many hundrets of years"-approach kinda fails too, at current rate there wont be even humans then...

[BeefJeRKy]

G-sus, on 3 Apr 2009, 2:28, said:

well, there´s this thing called physics (it really exists, ask dauth ), and it got certain rules.
about most of them state: "no, not gonna happen".
what really means "no, not gonna happen.". you couldnt build a perpetuum mobile either, no matter how advanced you try.
the "in many many hundrets of years"-approach kinda fails too, at current rate there wont be even humans then...

Such "rules" can be broken with future experiments. Look at the history of sciences. Maybe someday we will be able to break relativity. Or maybe we'll confirm the absolute limit of light. Noone can really predict if and/or when such discoveries will take place.

[Dauth]

Scope, on 3 Apr 2009, 17:11, said:

G-sus, on 3 Apr 2009, 2:28, said:

well, there´s this thing called physics (it really exists, ask dauth ), and it got certain rules.
about most of them state: "no, not gonna happen".
what really means "no, not gonna happen.". you couldnt build a perpetuum mobile either, no matter how advanced you try.
the "in many many hundrets of years"-approach kinda fails too, at current rate there wont be even humans then...

Such "rules" can be broken with future experiments. Look at the history of sciences. Maybe someday we will be able to break relativity. Or maybe we'll confirm the absolute limit of light. Noone can really predict if and/or when such discoveries will take place.

I consider the universe to be a rather good source of experiments, especially given the range of energies particles have. All that happens as you pump more energy into a particle of any mass is it gets ever so slightly closer to the speed of light. Its not that we can't do it, its that the energy required isn't in the universe.

[partyzanpaulzy]

FTL, FTL, ... faster than light...
Have you even thought this could be meant different, literally, like wormhole travel?
Problem is that stable wormhole would need giant amount of negative energy (billion times higher than scientists can produce).
Other way would be hyperspace (?).
Or even deformation of space to get higher speed than speed of light, but this would require much more energy than is present in known universe.

[Dauth]

We can observe a sphere of radius 13.7bn light years. Don't you think something as energetic as a wormhole might have shown up? Also if a wormhole exists in space thats still useless since the entire human race would have died out before we reached it, even if we were travelling at the speed of light.

[partyzanpaulzy]

Well, I meant what if stable wormhole can be created artificially, one day.
Not necessarilly long-lasting... For example the black hole can be seen just when it's "feeding" and artificial wormhole shouldn't destroy anything, so useable artificial wormhole wouldn't even produce radiation (/strong light, heat).
BTW, we even haven't catched any trace of any allien race...

But maybe it's just another "perpetuum mobile"...

Edited by partyzanpaulzy, 06 April 2009 - 15:33.

[Shirou]

How can you create something you have never ever even observed, or have never even proven existed?

That's going beyond even my hopeless optimism.

I'm more in to throw some of that into Quantum Tunneling physics, but I say no more.

[NergiZed]

I would have to ditto Aftershock.

We simply don't know or are even able to conceptualize those things yet.

Though out of all the theories I like space-warping propulsion the best. However, that, like the other concpets in this topic, is something that I, and possibly the human race, don't understand.

[BeefJeRKy]

I think our best approach would be theoretically getting control of the Higgs Boson which controls the mass of matter. Reduce mass to near zero and you can probably reduce the required energy for traveling at light speed. This is all hypothetical, but likely our best approach.

[Destiny]

If someone manages to stuff a Nuclear Reactor the size of a fridge lying on its side without serious repercussions like radiation posioning and stuff...yea, we might be getting somewhere. Then you'll need to make food that can replicate itself in a few hours, put the seed in a pot, wait a few hours and voila, it grows, and you eat it. Seeds, again! Grow, eat. Repeat.

[partyzanpaulzy]

Well, suit-case sized nuclear reactor can be constructed with current knowledge.
I have heard about 2 soviet nuclear powered tanks - this project has got cancelled because of probable damage of the reactor (after tank destruction or after being hit).
But this is rather off-topic.
I hope people will manage to create some way to travel fast between stars, because our solar system isn't enough (but should be for next few centuries) and the paradox of 2 twins is pretty... ...frustrating.
Hyperspace, wormholes ... these are my tips, although wormhole seems to be rather hypothetical than useable and hyperspace travel can be refutated.
But look, how before hundred years people thought we would(n't) get into the Moon...

Edited by partyzanpaulzy, 09 April 2009 - 12:50.

[Sgt. Rho]

I'l tell you how it will be like: First, all electronics on the ship go offline, lights and non-electronic system stay online. Then a massive electromagnet is put into action, powered by a series of shielded fusion reactors (or fission....), the ship disappears and hours later when at the destination, the electromagnet shuts off, the system go online again, and the ship reappears, but at the destination. Short: Hyperspace.

There is that theoretical possibility of jumping into an alternate dimension, call it hyperspace, via the use of a strong electromagnetic field.

[NergiZed]

Sgt. Rho, on 20 Apr 2009, 17:00, said:

I'l tell you how it will be like: First, all electronics on the ship go offline, lights and non-electronic system stay online. Then a massive electromagnet is put into action, powered by a series of shielded fusion reactors (or fission....), the ship disappears and hours later when at the destination, the electromagnet shuts off, the system go online again, and the ship reappears, but at the destination. Short: Hyperspace.

There is that theoretical possibility of jumping into an alternate dimension, call it hyperspace, via the use of a strong electromagnetic field.

Don't forget the fairy dust, that's the most crucial portion of the step.

On a more serious note, hyperspace is mostly fictional, thus your theory is speculation.

I personally like Scope's idea of controlling or negating the Higg's Boson, as well as Aftershock's quantum tunneling theories the best. I like them not because I understand them or think that they're possible for humanity in any short period of time, I like the theories because they're rooted in fact or well-established scientific hypothesises, and then adds speculation.

Edited by NergiZed, 20 April 2009 - 21:55.

[Cryptkeeper]

what if the laws of gravity aren't well constant all the time? mathematically as well as scientifically this is very well possible as even to this day gravity is poorly understood force heck we know electromagnetic nuclear reactions better then we do what is gravity. yes we know its a force that attracts anything with mass and mass attracts more mass but what is it caused by just mass ?

[NergiZed]

Cryptkeeper, on 9 May 2009, 12:27, said:

what if the laws of gravity aren't well constant all the time? mathematically as well as scientifically this is very well possible as even to this day gravity is poorly understood force heck we know electromagnetic nuclear reactions better then we do what is gravity. yes we know its a force that attracts anything with mass and mass attracts more mass but what is it caused by just mass ?

That's what the LHC is for. Either we'll find out the answer to mass (and maybe gravity) or Gordan Freeman will stop it from destroying the world.

I think you do have a point; we don't understand nearly enough to even have a minutely good guess to what FTL might be like.

[Dauth]

I'll ignore General Relativity when you give me a theory that gets Mecury's orbit closer to reality than the current one.