Most likely candidate for future spaceship propulsion

[JoeRoccoCassara]

Bussard Ramjet

 

Solar Sail

 

Nuclear Pulse

 

Nuclear Fusion Powered Spacecraft

[JoeRoccoCassara]

Bussard Ramjet is the fastest, therefore it has my unconditional, unchangeable vote.

[Moontanman]

Bussard Ramjet

 

Solar Sail

 

Nuclear Pulse

 

Nuclear Fusion Powered Spacecraft

 

You forgot the two best ones.

 

BRUCE BEHRHORST ARTICLE LIST

 

Magnetic sail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[JoeRoccoCassara]

You forgot the two best ones.

 

BRUCE BEHRHORST ARTICLE LIST

 

Magnetic sail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I don't know what the first one is, but the magsail seems very primitive compared to Nuclear fusion powered spacecrafts, nuclear pulse, and especially the Bussard Ramjet.

[Moontanman]

Bussard Ramjet is the fastest, therefore it has my unconditional, unchangeable vote.

 

The main problems with the bussard ram jet is that the concepts that allow it to work are not doable at this time and maybe never doable. Fusion power using simple hydrogen is the most difficult way to make fusion power and may be impossible in any way that could be used by a space craft. The idea of gathering interstellar hydrogen via a magnetic field is not possible without some way of giving the interstellar hydrogen some level of electrical charge. Various ways of doing this have been proposed but none of them have been tested even in the laboratory. So many new and completely unknown technologies would have to come together for a interstellar fusion ramjet I would have to rate it least likely to ever be used.

[Moontanman]

I don't know what the first one is, but the magsail seems very primitive compared to Nuclear fusion powered spacecrafts, nuclear pulse, and especially the Bussard Ramjet.

 

The mag sail is no more primitive than any of the others, it's a very elegant way to use the solar wind to propel a space craft even to interstellar distances. Nuclear pulse is a very primitive way to propel a space craft, much of the blast is wasted. A fusion powered space craft wouldn't be much better at total thrust than a ion drive. I suggest you read the article about gaseous fission rockets before you dismiss it.

[JoeRoccoCassara]

The main problems with the bussard ram jet is that the concepts that allow it to work are not doable at this time and maybe never doable. Fusion power using simple hydrogen is the most difficult way to make fusion power and may be impossible in any way that could be used by a space craft. The idea of gathering interstellar hydrogen via a magnetic field is not possible without some way of giving the interstellar hydrogen some level of electrical charge. Various ways of doing this have been proposed but none of them have been tested even in the laboratory. So many new and completely unknown technologies would have to come together for a interstellar fusion ramjet I would have to rate it least likely to ever be used.

 

Isn't the hydrogen condensed and fused into plasma by the Magfield?

 

Why would you need electrical charge for that?

[JoeRoccoCassara]

The mag sail is no more primitive than any of the others, it's a very elegant way to use the solar wind to propel a space craft even to interstellar distances. Nuclear pulse is a very primitive way to propel a space craft, much of the blast is wasted. A fusion powered space craft wouldn't be much better at total thrust than a ion drive. I suggest you read the article about gaseous fission rockets before you dismiss it.

 

But the fact that it needs solar wind is a huge draw back for traveling far outside the solar system, and especially for traveling toward a star as opposed to away from it.

[Moontanman]

Isn't the hydrogen condensed and fused into plasma by the Magfield?

 

Why would you need electrical charge for that?

 

A magnetic field has no effect at all on uncharged hydrogen. To gather the hydrogen via a magnetic field it has to be charged no way around it. To compress the hydrogen and heat it the hydrogen has to be charged. Regular hydrogen is the most difficult to compress and fuse, that why current designs use deuterium and tritium.

[Moontanman]

But the fact that it needs solar wind is a huge draw back for traveling far outside the solar system, and especially for traveling toward a star as opposed to away from it.

 

No, actually it is a good thing for traveling toward a star, you have to decelerate, a magnetic field will allow you to decelerate with the target stars own wind. a magnetic sail will power your space craft as far as a solar sail would using star light and even faster because a magnetic sail will expand as it moves away from a star and allow you to get more thrust as you sail away! a magnetic sail doesn't have any problems with erosion from interstellar dust and can be furled and unfurled in a short time with no danger of damaging the sail. A magnetic sail that gets larger as you move away from the star would allow you get thrust a large distance from your sun, and a magnetic sail could interact with the galactic magnetic field to give some thrust. You could build up a large delta V close to a star and then coast to the next one.

[JoeRoccoCassara]

A magnetic field has no effect at all on uncharged hydrogen. To gather the hydrogen via a magnetic field it has to be charged no way around it. To compress the hydrogen and heat it the hydrogen has to be charged. Regular hydrogen is the most difficult to compress and fuse, that why current designs use deuterium and tritium.

 

Other periodic elements gathered in the magnetic field with the hydrogen from the interstellar medium could be condensed and fused into plasma, such as dust grains and helium from the distant stars.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the hydrogen was already electrically charged from the collisions of cosmic rays and space dusts from the interstellar medium.

 

And if we got unlucky and didn't gather any electrically charged hydrogen we could just collide it with the gathered space dust and cosmic rays.

 

But if all else fails there's always helium in the medium.

[JoeRoccoCassara]

No, actually it is a good thing for traveling toward a star, you have to decelerate, a magnetic field will allow you to decelerate with the target stars own wind. a magnetic sail will power your space craft as far as a solar sail would using star light and even faster because a magnetic sail will expand as it moves away from a star and allow you to get more thrust as you sail away! a magnetic sail doesn't have any problems with erosion from interstellar dust and can be furled and unfurled in a short time with no danger of damaging the sail. A magnetic sail that gets larger as you move away from the star would allow you get thrust a large distance from your sun, and a magnetic sail could interact with the galactic magnetic field to give some thrust. You could build up a large delta V close to a star and then coast to the next one.

 

It wouldn't be as fast and no matter how big you made the Magnetic field there wouldn't be enough power from the distant sun to propel it at all, once the sun becomes a dot, it's pretty much hopeless.

 

And there aren't enough mag fields in the interstellar medium to propel it far enough.

 

It would become stranded in space.

[Moontanman]

It wouldn't be as fast and no matter how big you made the Magnetic field there wouldn't be enough power from the distant sun to propel it at all, once the sun becomes a dot, it's pretty much hopeless.

 

And there aren't enough mag fields in the interstellar medium to propel it far enough.

 

It would become stranded in space.

 

Stranded in space? Do you think it's going to stop? You coast to the next star, decelerate into orbit around that star or a planet. Think!

[Moontanman]

Other periodic elements gathered in the magnetic field with the hydrogen from the interstellar medium could be condensed and fused into plasma, such as dust grains and helium from the distant stars.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the hydrogen was already electrically charged from the collisions of cosmic rays and space dusts from the interstellar medium.

 

And if we got unlucky and didn't gather any electrically charged hydrogen we could just collide it with the gathered space dust and cosmic rays.

 

But if all else fails there's always helium in the medium.

 

Gardamorg, a magnetic field is not going to pick up anything that it not charged! Not dust, not helium, nothing! Charged particles are not common enough to support a space ship's evergy requirments.

[JoeRoccoCassara]

Stranded in space? Do you think it's going to stop? You coast to the next star, decelerate into orbit around that star or a planet. Think!

 

Coast had better be a fancy way of saying sun generating solar energy from 20 light years away, or it won't work.

 

A star can only provide enough propulsion to get your mag field space craft may be two light years away, but after that the sun will be too distant to provide any real magnetic propulsion, and that's saying the mag field can be lengthened to a million miles in diameter.

[Moontanman]

Coast had better be a fancy way of saying sun generating solar energy from 20 light years away, or it won't work.

 

A star can only provide enough propulsion to get your mag field space craft may be two light years away, but after that the sun will be too distant to provide any real magnetic propulsion, and that's saying the mag field can be lengthened to a million miles in diameter.

 

Gardamorg, once you achieve a velocity in space you keep it until something else acts on you. And at least theoretically a magnetic sail could be a million miles in diameter. But it wouldn't need to be, once you had achieved your velocity you could coast to the end of the universe if you wanted but I would prefer to coast to the next star and decelerate into orbit around that star. Power to generate the sail could be generated by a nuclear reactor. All this technology could be done now, nothing new needs to be discovered for it to work.

[JoeRoccoCassara]

Gardamorg, once you achieve a velocity in space you keep it until something else acts on you. And at least theoretically a magnetic sail could be a million miles in diameter. But it wouldn't need to be, once you had achieved your velocity you could coast to the end of the universe if you wanted but I would prefer to coast to the next star and decelerate into orbit around that star. Power to generate the sail could be generated by a nuclear reactor. All this technology could be done now, nothing new needs to be discovered for it to work.

 

 

The weight of the payload that the magfield would be hauling would generate drag.

 

Weight is a constant, and it is a force that acts against velocity, surely it's not as great in space as on Earth, but it's still there.