Yesterday we looked at a number of different space ship power and today we will dig into a few of these power sources. The following is from interestingengineering.com and written by Matthew S. Williams.
Directed Energy
Think solar sails and you have it. Solar sails have been the subject of research and development for decades and are considered a cost-effective way of exploring the Solar System. Compared to conventional spacecraft, they are relatively cheap to manufacture, being made of large sheets of reflective material and lightweight electrical components. More importantly, they rely on solar pressure for propulsion, requiring no fuel (or bulky fuel tanks).
Several technology demonstrators have been built and tested in space. This includes the IKAROS space probe by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that operated in space from 2010 to 2015. Between 2015 and 2019, the Planetary Society launched two solar sails to orbit, LightSail-1 and LightSail-2.
The same technology has been considered for interstellar exploration applications in recent years. This is known as Directed Energy Propulsion (DEP), where “lightsails” are accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light (relativistic speeds) using arrays of focused lasers. The technology combines the benefits of low mass, no propellant, and extremely high delta-v.
The concept was proposed by physicist and science fiction author Robert Forward, which he described in a 1984 study titled “Roundtrip Interstellar TravelUsing Laser-pushed Lightsails”:
“It is a form of beamed-power propulsion in that the ‘engines’ of the vehicle are left behind in the Solar System and the power and reaction mass are transmitted out to the rest of the vehicle that carries the payload… these systems can be designed so that the outward thrust of the Solar System-based lasers not only an push the lightsails up to relativistic velocities but also can be used to bring the lightsails to a stop in the target system.”
According to a 2000 study produced by Robert Frisbee, a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Advanced Propulsion Technology Group at NASA JPL, a laser sail could be accelerated to half the speed of light. However, this would require a steady flow of 17,000 terawatts (TW) of power (close to what the entire world consumes in a single day) for nearly a decade.
Frisbee also calculated that a sail composed of composite materials and measuring about 200 mi (320 km) in diameter could reach Proxima Centauri in a little more than 12 years, while a larger sail (600 mi; 965 km) could make the transit in just under nine years.
Efforts to realize directed energy propulsion began in 2014 with Project Dragonfly, a feasibility study for an interstellar mission of small sailcraft capable of reaching a target star system within a century. The top two concepts have since matured into Project Lyra and Breakthrough Starshot, currently being developed by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) and Breakthrough Initiatives (respectively).
The former envisions lightsails that could achieve velocities of up to 16 mi/s (26 km/s) and rendezvous with interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. The latter calls for a 100 Gigawatt (GW) laser to accelerate lightsails to 37,256.5 mi/s (59,958.5 km/s), or 20% the speed of light, allowing it to reach Alpha Centauri within 20 years of launch.
Antimatter
Yes that antimatter from Star Trek. Another truly exotic idea is the use of matter-antimatter annihilations, a concept that is commonly featured in science fiction. To break it down, antimatter is matter composed of antiparticles with the same mass but opposite charge as regular particles. In an antimatter propulsion system, particles of hydrogen and antihydrogen collide in a reaction chamber.
This reaction would unleash as much energy as a thermonuclear bomb and showers of subatomic particles called pions and muons that travel at relativistic speeds. These are channeled by a magnetic nozzle to generate thrust, gradually pushing a spacecraft up to half the speed of light. An immediate advantage of this propulsion system is the way it combines incredible energy density and high delta-v.
These benefits make antimatter propulsion the most fuel-efficient and powerful concept ever conceived. Because of its potential, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has investigated the technology to realize future missions to deep space. For such a mission, a few grams of antimatter would be enough to provide rapid transit to Mars and back.
Multiplied exponentially, antimatter propulsion could enable missions to nearby stars in a few years or decades. According to a 2003 report prepared by Frisbee for the 39th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, a two-stage antimatter rocket would need more than 900,000 tons (815,000 metric tons) of fuel to make the journey to Proxima Centauri in roughly 40 years.
A 2001 study by Dr. Darrel Smith & Jonathan Webby of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona was more optimistic. According to their estimates, an interstellar spacecraft weighing 441 tons (400 metric tons) with 187 tons (170 metric tons) of antimatter could reach 0.5 the speed of light and make it to Proxima Centauri in just over eight years.
The downside is the cost of producing even the most modest amounts of antimatter. Only a handful of nanograms have been created by particle accelerators to date. According to CERN, producing about one billionth of a gram costs a few hundred million Swiss francs (equivalent to a few hundred million US dollars).
A 1999 NASA report estimated that producing a single gram of antimatter would cost $62.5 trillion, while a 2006 report by Dr. Gerald Smith of Positronics Research LLC placed the estimated cost at $25 billion per gram. This essentially means that antimatter is the most expensive material in the world to manufacture right now.
A possible solution was recommended by astrophysicist Richard Obousy (co-founder of Icarus Interstellar) in a 2011 paper, where he described a Vacuum to Antimatter Rocket Interstellar Explorer System (VARIES). Similar to the Bussard Ramjet discussed in the previous installment, the VARIES spacecraft would harvest its own propellant directly from space. This would be accomplished by firing lasers (powered by massive solar arrays) into the vacuum of space and scooping up the resulting antiparticles.
However, the high cost and energy requirements of such a concept would still be prohibitive and very challenging using today's technology. Well until they find the Dilithium Crystals or something like it that is.
Well there you have it some energy sources that may be used in space flight into the future. Maybe one day humans will be living throughout the solar system and beyond. What do you think?
Reference:
https://interestingengineering.com/science/ad-astra-the-future-of-propulsion-technology-part-ii
I have lost a lot of faith with the Medical Community and the Governments over the last several years, but there are a few good things that can raise above the corruption and the pushing of drugs a new approach to heal people. The following is from www.gaia.com and written by Hunter Parsons that does not involve any drug or pushing an ineffective so called vaccine that the drug company is not held accountable in any way but they use sound! The use of sound can regrow bone tissue! Here is the story:
"The future of regenerative medicine could be found within sound healing by regrowing bone cells with sound waves.
The use of sound as a healing modality has an ancient tradition all over the world. The ancient Greeks used sound to cure mental disorders; Australian Aborigines reportedly use the didgeridoo to heal; and Tibetan or Himalayan singing bowls were, and still are, used for spiritual healing ceremonies.
Recently, a study showed an hour-long sound bowl meditation reduced anger, fatigue, anxiety, and ...
Not a fan of a Defense Agency studying Anti-Gravity and other Exotic Tech, but if the commercial world and make this technology cheap that will change our world yet again. The following is about three minute read and from www.gaia.com. The below was written by Hunter Parsons:
"Wormholes, invisibility cloaks, and anti-gravity — it’s not science fiction, it’s just some of the exotic things the U.S. government has been researching.
A massive document dump by the Defense Intelligence Agency shows some of the wild research projects the United States government was, at least, funding through the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program known as AATIP.
And another lesser-known entity called the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program or AAWSAP
The Defense Intelligence Agency has recently released a large number of documents to different news outlets and individuals who have filed Freedom of Information Act requests.
Of particular interest are some 1,600 pages released to Vice News, which ...
As our technology gets better we are discovering more about the history of mankind and pushing the timeline back further and further. The following article is from www.gaia.com and written by Michael Chary that discusses this new find that changes the historical timeline:
"Over the past decade, there have been a number of archeological revelations pushing back the timeline of human evolution and our ancient ancestors’ various diasporas. Initially, these discoveries elicit some resistance as archeologists bemoan the daunting prospect of rewriting the history books, though once enough evidence is presented to established institutions, a new chronology becomes accepted.
But this really only pertains to the era of human development that predates civilization — the epochs of our past in which we were merely hunter-gatherers and nomads roaming the savannahs. Try challenging the consensus timeline of human civilization and it’s likely you’ll be met with derision and rigidity.
Conversely, someone of an alternative...
Not sure if you have heard of a show on YouTube called "The Why Files". If not you should check it out it is interesting and has some humor with it on different subjects. Last weeks was on a different theory how the Universe works and how main stream Science is attempting to shut it down like is always seems to do if it goes aguest some special interest. Today it is akin to what happened to those who questioned the Earth was the Center of the Universe that main stream so called Science all believed during the Renaissance period, They called any theory that the Earth was not the Center of the Universe misinformation. Does this sound familiar today? People laughed and mocked people like Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolaus Copernicus, Georg Purbach as crack-pots, conspiracy theorists, nut-jobs and they were suppressed and even imprisoned for their radical thoughts and observations. Again it sounds like today in so many ways. In any event this is a good one to ponder and see even if a bad idea ...
Seemingly chaotic systems like the weather and the financial markets are governed by the laws of chaos theory.
We all have heard about chaos theory, but if you have not or have forgotten what chaos theory is well here you go from interestingengineering.com:
"Chaos theory deals with dynamic systems, which are highly sensitive to initial conditions, making it almost impossible to track the resulting unpredictable behavior. Chaos theory seeks to find patterns in systems that appear random, such as weather, fluid turbulence, and the stock market.
Since the smallest of changes can lead to vastly different outcomes, the long-term behavior of chaotic systems is difficult to predict despite their inherently deterministic nature.
As Edward Lorenz, who first proposed what became commonly known as the Butterfly Effect, eloquently said, "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.""
You may have heard the term about chaos theory as a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil,...
I for one have lost trust in Medical Doctors due to COVID and reflection that they seem to push pills for everything and untested so called vaccines that is using a unproven technology because the Government and the Medical Boards of the State told them to. There are a very few exceptions. Thus they do not address the key problem just prescribe more and more pills to keep you alive an sick longer for them and Big Phama to profit from you. Will AI do any better? Well that depends on what was used for the training of AI. If it also pushes pills and vaccines without question then you have the same problems noted above. However, if the AI Training includes all possible forms of treatment and they zero in on the right issues for the true problem then there is possibilities they would be way better than most of the current Medical Doctors today.
The following is from an article from interestingengineering.com and written by Paul Ratner:
"A new study looks at how accurately AI can diagnose patients. We interview the researcher, who weighs in on AI's role ...
