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**EnochF** · June 17, 1999, 19:28

For the record, "hydrophonic" should be "hydroponic." Hydroponics, or the growing of plants without the use of soil, will be invaluable for growing plants in microgravity.

**smilo** · June 18, 1999, 07:17

Thanks Enoch, I'll make the nessesary corrections.

**NotLikeTea** · June 18, 1999, 07:24

A hydrophonic satellite would be one orbiting the earth, with a microphone dangling into the ocean. On the end of a verrrry long extension cord.

**Harel** · June 19, 1999, 00:05

Oh, NotLikeaTea, thats a space elevator

BTW, Smilo, add the space elevator to the list: all launchs cost nothing ( reduce 30% of cost of satellites, 20% for buildings, 10% of wonders ).

Now, about the summary: great one, really, but can't you put a new section: movement in space and unite my post ( in unity ) transportion and teleportion? Better to have a few big catagories and a lot of small ones.
Therefor, I put all the proposed movements ( and add a few.

Fuel units are a worth an accelerating worth. For example, you may burn 100 fuel units per turn. Therefor, engine 4 will move something like this:
First turn - 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 36, 36..
( unless we want to include the fuel needed to stop ).

I also introduce a new type of poplution: spatial popultion, a damage ot the farbic of space and time. Can endanger ships.

Harel's list o' engines :</u/b>

Fossil fuel: Doesn't really exist, you know. No rocket really use fossil fuel, but an oxygen/hydrogen mix.

Rocket fuel: Hydrogen/oxygen mix.
Tech: 1960
Cost: High
Upkeep: 2 per fuel unit.
Enivroment: Bad.
Reliabiltiy: Low.
Speed: 1 G' acceleration, 20 fuel-units.

Laser-propulsion: A direct beam of laser gives energy to the targeted ship.
Tech: 2010
Cost: Low for ship, Very high for structure.
Upkeep: 15 per turn.
Enviroment: Clean
Reliability: Medium.
Speed: 0.1 G acceleration, as long as beam stays on ( +10 per turn ).

Electrical Ion drive: A compund plastic battary ( some pre-limanry models show a battary 20 times more powerful then even ion-lithium ones ), activing an electrical centerfuge that accelerate an Ion drive ( plasma of the Xeon noble gas ) to high speeds.
Tech: 2005
Cost: High
Upkeep: 1 per 25 fuel units.
Enviroment: Clean
Reliability: medium.
Speed: 0.05 G' acceleration, 600 fuel-units.

nuclear drive A uranium rode hitting up a Zinc-based engine ( a high-bulk matter, very good movement ratio ).
Tech: 1990
Cost: Normal
Upkeep: 1 per 5 fuel-units.
Enviroment: Very bad. Radio-active.
Reliabiltiy: Low.
Speed: 0.15 G' acceleration, 400 fuel-units.

Funnel ship This ship moves by sweaping lose hydrogen from space and burning it. Resemble a funnel. Mainly used with seed-lanes to offer good speeds.
Tech: 2010
Cost: Low.
Upkeep: None.
Enviroment: Clean
Reliabilty: Very good.
Speed: On seed-lane, 0.1 G' (+10). Solar system: 0.02 G' (+2). Inter-steller: 0.01 G (+1)

Catapult Using the force of a space elevator to hurl the ship by the centerfugale force of the planet.

Tech: requires Space elevator.
Cost: Low.
Upkeep: 10 for energy, single-time.
Enviroment: Clean.
Reliabilty: Maximum.
Speed: 30 k/sec when flung from earth. ( fixed speed ).

Solar sail: The solar-wind is filled with real-matter: neutrons, electrons and the like. The impact cause momentum. The high exposure-area of the solar sail allow a maxed impact of the wind.
Tech: 2020
Cost: Medium-high.
Upkeep: 0.
Reliabilty: Good.
Enviroment: Clean.
Speed: 0.05 G' ( +5 ) in solar-system. Intersteller: 0.

Heavy fusion drive: The "low"-tempture fusion of deutrium/tritium ion's in four million degrees, induced by elctro-magnetic pressure. This cause output energy by photons and neutrons. Possible for inter-steller flight.
Tech: 2030.
Cost: Medium.
Upkeep: 1 per 10 fuel-cells.
Reliabilty: Good.
Enviroment: Cause radio-activiy ( alpha radiation, cause neutron output ) but less the nuclear ones.
Speed: 0.2 G', 1250 fuel-cells.

Pure fusion drive: A high-tempture, spatial compressed enviroment where pure hydrogen is fusioned in a pseudo-tempture of 200 million C. The unity used this.
Tech: 2050.
Cost: 1 per 10 fuel-cells.
Upkeep: Medium.
Reliabilty: Medium.
Enviroment: Clean.
Speed: 0.5 G', 1000 fuel-cells.

Cold fission/fusion drive An engine which breakdown matter ( fission ), then fusion it, slowly transforming all matter to energy. Perfect for inter-steller ships.
Tech: 2100.
Cost: high.
Upkeep: 1 per 100 fuel-cells.
Reliabilty: Medium.
Enviroment: Clean.
Speed: 0.05 G', 3000 fuel-cells.

Hydrid engine: this engine elctrotize water molecule to oxygen and hydrogen, this mix them up again. Bit's of the water turn to energy, outputing energy to sastain the process.
Tech: 2020.
Cost: Medium-low.
Upkeep: 1 per 40 fuel-cells.
Reliabilty: Good.
Enviroment: Clean.
Speed: 0.05 G', 300 fuel-cells.

Matter/anti-matter drive: by turning anti-matter into a more effiecent process, the energy output by the annihilation of matter exceed the cost of creating the anti-matter, making a very powerful drive. Very useful for inter-steller drive.
Tech: 2075
Cost: Medium
Upkeep: 1 per 10 fuel-cells.
Reliabilty: Low.
Enviroment: Clean.
Speed: 0.9 G', 1200 fuel-cells.

Singularty drive: Like a black-hole, in quantum vacuum an electron and pozitron are created from the energy of the back-ground gravitional field ( Howking aura ). This is a great power indeed, which can move the unity with ease.
Tech: 2200
Cost: High.
Upkeep: for stablizing crystals, 7 per turn.
Reliabilty: Very low.
Enviroment: Cause spatial damage.
Speed: 1.0 G' ( +100 per turn ).

Continium-slide by using the force in the matter itself, and twisting mach-prinicple, you can create a ship that constantly move: perptura momentum. It will move by the force of her existance.
Tech: 2500
Cost: Medium-low.
Upkeep: 0.
Reliabilty: Maxium.
Enviroment: Clean.
Speed: 0.6 G' ( +60 per turn ).

16. Pseudo-gravity: Using temporal twists, you "virtualy" move, by not really passing by all the points along the way. Propeled by a singulary drive.
Tech: 2300
Cost: Very high.
Upkeep: For stablizing crystals, 50 per turn.
Reliabilty: Very low.
Enviroment: Massive spatial damage.
Speed: 10 G' ( no effect of inertia ), +1000 per turn.

Warp-drive: Using gravitional twisting of the fabric of the universe, you create a tunnel that allows you short jumps along the way. Propeled by a fusion/cold fission drive.
Tech: 2150
Cost: Very high.
Upkeep: 30 per turn.
Reliabilty: Low.
Enviroment: almost no spatial damage: the worm-holes are temportaly, and on a small scale.
Speed: +0.1 speed-of-light per turn, only for inter-steller.

Transfer point: in the origin of the universe, some particles were shattered. The principle of quantum physics dictates, that all movement inside the same atom is INSTANTENIOS ( this was proven in labs. An electron move between the four neuclons of a helium atom like the space between them doesn't exist, even after they were broken apart and hurlted 20 m' from one another ). Therefor, there are "connected" particles in the universe. by causing a very small portion of space to enflate by fabric twisting, we can "slip" a ship, and allow her to reach the other side INSTANTOUSLY.
Tech: 2750
Cost: Extreamly high, requires a special gateway.
Upkeep: 1000 per ship moved.
Reliabilty: Slight.
Enviroment: You tear up the cosmos.
Speed: A verticel 8.

[This message has been edited by Harel (edited June 18, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Harel (edited June 18, 1999).]

**EnochF** · June 19, 1999, 00:36

Oh, yeah. I forgot all about laser propulsion. That may begin to look more feasible as the years pass. I mean, before all that hysteria from the environmentalists about lasers burning through the atmosphere. For the record, laser propulsion has been tested and even works to a certain extent on fairly small objects. The main problems are (1) harnessing enough energy to propel a large craft carrying people, and (2) maintaining laser focus on the craft while it remains susceptible to the winds.

Ion drives are pretty feeble, though. I've heard them described as "acceleration with patience." They're fine for sending, say, a robotic probe to Alpha Centauri, but for humans, it's just not practical (yet). I mean, deceleration with ion drive would be a real *****.

Okay, for the record, (since scientific concepts are often difficult to translate from one language to another), it appears that #9, the "heavy fusion drive," is what most Americans would think of as "cold fusion," i.e., "the low-tempture [sic] fusion of deutrium [sic]/tritium ion's, causing output energy by photons and neutrons." However, deuterium (hydrogen-2) won't fuse at low temperatures, and tritium (hydrogen-3) is in fact slightly unstable (radioactive) and would be more likely to begin fission, although tritium occurs so rarely that the chances of a dangerous nuclear tritium chain reaction are infinitesimal. Particle accelerators could fuse individual atomic nuclei, but not in sufficient numbers to begin a massive fusion reaction. Besides, the particle accelerators would end up expending more energy propelling the atomic nuclei than the meager fusion would provide. "Cold fusion" is impossible.

Let's move on, then, to #11, which is called the "cold fusion" drive but really isn't. In fact, the process described here, "an engine which breakdown matter, then fusion it, slowly transforming all matter to energy," is the very same strategy used in present-day hydrogen bombs. A simple A-bomb is used to begin a nuclear fission reaction, which creates the necessary heat to begin a fusion reaction. Thus, there's nothing "cold" about the fusion in this system. Referring to this as "cold fusion" is confusing the issue. This is not to say that the process, call it what you will, cannot be refined, but at the moment, the fusion reaction is just as uncontrolled, in fact less so, than the reaction in a nuclear fission bomb. There is as yet no way of harnessing all this energy to use it as a fuel source. That would be the necessary advance.

However, using nuclear explosions as propulsion is not unheard-of. I seem to recall a design called "Daedalus," which was proposed by, I believe, the British Planetary Society. Its propulsion was accomplished by detonating small nuclear devices onto an "inertial plate." One slight problem is that it violated a handful of nuclear armaments treaties. C'est la vie.

**Harel** · June 19, 1999, 00:51

EnochF, sorry about the "cold fusion", i seem to do it every time
fixing it right away. It's fission, I know...
Remember, what I say "low" temptures of heavy hydrogen fusion is 4-5 million degrees. It's "low" because you compare it with the pure fusion of 200 million degrees.
Do you know what "neutron output" is? radiation. The defination of radio-acitivy is the radiation emmiting from fissioned uranium and the like, emmiting, among other things two neutrons, which is the passive gamma radiation. Indeed, fusioning deutrium/tritium mixs create high amounts of radio-activity: the heavy fusion drive is just as dangerous as a nuclear one: it just creates more then 500 times the energy, allowing us to create a REALTIVITY clean force.
However, it's not as perfect as PURE hydrogen fusion, and indeed I did say on my post that this engine creates radio-acitivty.

BTW, the unity used an engine which controlled 2000 nuclear fusion explosion per minute, seazing the explosion with elctro-magnets and propeling it along the ship, striking a a slab in the rear of the ship. This cause the propulsion. You can control explosions.

[This message has been edited by Harel (edited June 18, 1999).]

**smilo** · June 19, 1999, 01:18

Harel,

Thanks for the suggestion of combining teleportation with space movement. I deliberatly kept teleportation as a seperate entry as it is a contraversial subject. Some people really like it others ... well really hate it.

But, as new scientific experiments have proven that quanta can be teleported instanteniously from one place to another, I believe teleportation is actually becoming a real science. Therefore I can indeed combine space transportation and teleportation in one single subject.

Thanks for the advice.

By the way, It seems like we have a really interesting thread going on here. I learned a lot.

Smilo, as thread moderator.

**smilo** · June 19, 1999, 01:29

This is me as thread participant.

What about energy from rolling of a metal cable by a sattelite in orbit. The cable will move at high speed through Earths magnetic field. As we have learned from our Physics teacher, conductors moving throug a magnetic field induces an electric current in the conductor. It has been done on an experimental level using the SPace Shuttle.

Hasel,
About the space lift. Could you elaborate on that a little more. Is it a very tall lift shaft ?
I always though that you could get stuff into orbit by using a very long cable. The cable would be rolled down by a sattelite in geostationary orbite. Once connected to earth, the cable would, at the other end, be connected to a high weight object. By using the centrifugal forces of the spinning earth you could keep the cable under tension. It would actually combine the benefits of a space elevator with magnetic energy.

Is this impossible to do?

**EnochF** · June 19, 1999, 05:01

Hardly. The only obstacle is finding a substance with a high enough tensile strength. There's speculation that carbon nanotubes might be the answer. Carbon nanotubes are tiny strands of material, thinner than a single human hair, constructed of buckminsterfullerene molecules, or "buckyballs," which, I believe, have the chemical formula of C64. Or maybe it's C60. Anyway, the molecules are made of a bunch of carbon atoms arranged in a roughly spherical pattern.

"Space elevators," sometimes referred to as "orbital tethers" or "star ladders," are all the rage in modern space science. The most famous SF example of one occurs in Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise, though the concept appears in several sources afterwards, including Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships.

[This message has been edited by EnochF (edited June 19, 1999).]

**Harel** · June 19, 1999, 11:44

Well EnochF i am not refering to C.Clark 3001 odyssey super-structure, but more of the very possible Kim stenly robinson Mars elevator.
An astroid is sent into orbit, and mechanical workers weave a mixture of graphite, nano-tube and insdustrial diamond coating. This thin cable is several thousand miles long, and you weave it till it reaches the planet orbit. Then, you can have carts raiding up and down, just like an elevator. The cost is preety low, as it relies mainly on mechanical automated work. Does take several dozen of years to weave the cable.

You can also launch ships this way: a ship is stuck to the cable, and then whip-flashed by a jerk, using the cable centerfuge force gotten from the planet gravity.
The energy cost is minimal: only requires to lift the ship into the elevator orbit.

Therefor, it's not a "shaft" of any sort, but a flexible cord. Any solid building, unless very wide and strong, will crumble against the force. Indeed, even bucky-balls would crumble under the centerfugal force if you create a narrow-shaft: you will need to build a huge tower, much like c.clark towering sky-scrapers.

**EnochF** · June 20, 1999, 04:05

Yes, Harel. Of course, Harel.

<a href="http://science.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/Nanotechnology/publications/1997/applications/">Carbon nanotubes article</a>.

[This message has been edited by EnochF (edited June 20, 1999).]

**Harel** · June 20, 1999, 10:27

I fail to notice what's the difference between the article and my quote: I said you can build a space-elevator in a form of a long cable, and indeed that what the article suggested. Do take the time to read what you post, EnochF. Indeed, a solid, fixed structre will crumble: a flexible cord would not. A space elevator needs to be flexible: the advantge of steel over iron.

Anyway, that's not the reason for my post. since Smilo took an intrest in Teleportion, I will now explain.

My last theortical propulsion system on my post is the Transfer-point, a teleportion model.

Teleportion is done by quantum links. Photons of the same frequency are connected with an instantous link. If you tune two photons, divide them and send them to different ways, every change of one photon will INSTANTOUSLY effect the other photon, regardless of distance. FTL communction, ofcoruse can derive on this.
The transfer of matter can be done by a similar princple: the electrons of an atom move past all of the atom nuclei parts, regards of distance. Split up the atom and send it parts into distant realms, and the electron and quarks ( moved by the color force ) will move inside this shatterd atom as no distance lay between them

Now, how can we use this to transfer a ship? Latest theortical reaserch say that atoms are not a fixed things. Trying to explain the quantum un-certenty rule, physics explain the atom ( or any particle ) as this: the fifth dimension is a "loop" dimension. Particles moving by it are moving side-ways by staying at the same place: they are moving in a very tight loop. Every particle is not a point, but a very narrow region filled with potenial energy. Like a ring ( which the fifth-dimension loop curl defines ), filled with the energy that creates the atom.

So, when you shatter an atom, you get two EXTREAMTLY small regions, bonded by instantous link. In the process of the universe creations, numerous atoms and electrons where shatterd. As matter condensed, you have places in space bonded by each other.

Now, let's say humanity masterd the infinital force of the quantum vacuum singularity engine, as the understanding of gravitonics technology. Since 1'g force is only equal to 10 watts, we can easily see the futuristic engines creating fields of millions, billions, maybe even trillions of G' ( since one singulary engine can create more power in a second then all current power plants in ther world do in a day ).

Now, think we take this extreamtly small region ( 1/1 with 30 zeroes mm, if you want an idea just how small this is ), and inflate it. GREATLY. Make it so huge, it now spanning several hundred meters of virtual space ( the space/time continium is very easy to twist... you will be suprised how easily ).

Move a ship in, using a gravitional field to stedy the bubble ( if the globe of space/time shattered, every matter in it implodes ), and just move ever so-slightly... and you are on the other side of the link, meters, kilometers, parsacs, maybe even in a different galaxy ( remember, since the big-bang matter has drifted apart greatly ).
Ala, long-range teleportion.
See value: wing-commander series ( that's your jump points people ).

Hope I helped Smilo.

**Galen** · June 20, 1999, 17:27

I think that at 2050 if you haven't sent a ship to Alpha Centauri a ship is automatically launched to Alpha Centauri. A question though, SMAC is based on a UN mission, so it doesn't seem like you could carry over, unless SMACX does a big overhaul. But I like the idea of colonizing planets, perhaps you can choose at the start to have or not have space, in case you don't like it?

**EnochF** · June 20, 1999, 19:01

Yes, Harel. Of course, Harel.

smilo: I always though that you could get stuff into orbit by using a very long cable.
EnochF: Carbon nanotubes are tiny strands of material, thinner than a single human hair, constructed of buckminsterfullerene molecules.
Harel: Blah blah blah you're wrong, it has to be a cable!
Everybody: ?!

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