MagnaCool--Habitable Exoplanet!

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Seeker
I'm thinking of a sporadic 'pulse' at intervals.

If we have a wave of some EM band crap pulsing out at some interval we don't need to continuously light things up.

The pulse is our active system; these pulses travel ahead of the ship. Our passive system detects the interaction of our wave with any particles and calculates the trajectory of that particle (i am assuming that massive particles are a) very rare in the IM b) contain a high proportion of metallic elements like iron that will give off sexy amounts of photons when our wave 'excites' them (why is EVERYTHING about sex??)

This system will be a lot better than 'hitting a bullet with a bullet' like Star Wars/Bush Wars or even the AEGIS system it has no atmosphere to worry about and can correct its aim in a fraction of a second.

Given the hefty amount of computing power we can have available I really don't see it as an insurmountable engineering difficulty to track and fire on something, say tracking it from 1 KM, firing at a few meters.

At 10% c an object 1 km ahead will smack the ship in 33 microseconds. The tracking system will have to be impressively fast

Not insurmountable I hope. I wonder how fast a system designed with current state of the art could do the job?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Seeker
I'm thinking of a sporadic 'pulse' at intervals.

If we have a wave of some EM band crap pulsing out at some interval we don't need to continuously light things up.

I wonder why nobody's ever thought of using a pulsed EM wave to detect objects before...

[Krill]

...Because it will **** up everything electronic on the ship?

[Ned]

I can hardly imagine you would want any machinery or electronics active in deep space for 10-20 thousand years. Things degrade upon use.

[Dr Strangelove]

If this thing is 5 X the size of earth then wouldn't it's gravity be 5 X also? That doesn't sound like a fun place to visit. If it's that much bigger than earth wouldn't it's atmosphere be denser and therefore the surface temperature be much higher?

[Ned]

Dr. S, I think they said the gravity would be between 1 and 2 times that of Earth's. Tolerable.

The heat issue should depend upon the power of the local star, upon the amount of land irradiated, the attitude of the rotational axis (assuming rotation) to the plane of orbit and the contents of the atmosphere.

[Asmodean]

If we want to get there, then a Bussard Ramjet would be the way to go, I think.

The main problem (and remember this is technology that exists only on paper) is that the current theoretical models project that there is simply not enough hydrogen floating around in interstellar space for the drive to be efficient.

The Bussard Remjet also comes with a serious speed-limit, as the scooped up hydrogen would have to be accelarated to the ship's speed in order to provide thrust.

Asmodean

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
If this thing is 5 X the size of earth then wouldn't it's gravity be 5 X also? That doesn't sound like a fun place to visit. If it's that much bigger than earth wouldn't it's atmosphere be denser and therefore the surface temperature be much higher?

Bear in mind that the planet is also physically larger and that the strength of a gravitation field decays in an inverse square relationship. Also that, let us assume that the planet was the same density as earth then the increased distance from the gravitational centre would be the cube root of 5, however the strength of a gravitational field at the same distance from the centre at the same point in the field would be five times as great (5G at the radius of the earth). However as this planet is approx 1.7x the radius of earth, the gravitational field at this point (the surface) ends up being 1.7G.

I hope that makes sense...

[Ned]

Originally posted by Asmodean
If we want to get there, then a Bussard Ramjet would be the way to go, I think.

The main problem (and remember this is technology that exists only on paper) is that the current theoretical models project that there is simply not enough hydrogen floating around in interstellar space for the drive to be efficient.

The Bussard Remjet also comes with a serious speed-limit, as the scooped up hydrogen would have to be accelarated to the ship's speed in order to provide thrust.

Asmodean

The, what is the top speed given current technology?

[Asmodean]

I have no idea, actually. In theory, it is unlimited, since space is void (or almost void) of anything to slow us down. So it's more a matter of how much fuel is cost-efficient to bring.

As long as you can put out thrust, you can increase speed.

Asmodean

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I wonder why nobody's ever thought of using a pulsed EM wave to detect objects before...

[Ned]

Originally posted by Asmodean
I have no idea, actually. In theory, it is unlimited, since space is void (or almost void) of anything to slow us down. So it's more a matter of how much fuel is cost-efficient to bring.

As long as you can put out thrust, you can increase speed.

Asmodean

Funny. Every time I ask how fast can we go, or some such, I get the same kind of answer.

Most people thing 10% c is a necessary speed to get the travel time down to less than a thousand years, but no one seems to have any idea how to go even that fast with any technology, and others say if you go that fast, you won't last very long with all the space dust, etc.

Strange. I would have thought we would at least have had some idea how to get from here to there in less than a million years.

[Asmodean]

Ask Nasa...they must have the answer. Last time I looked, they had kind of a "post your questions about space exploration" service

Asmodean

[Ned]

I just might.

But NASA has become very non aggressive regarding space exploration. The Chinese are the folks pushing the envelope these days.

[Eli]

But NASA has become very non aggressive regarding space exploration. The Chinese are the folks pushing the envelope these days.

Mercury style mission are not exactly pushing the envelope.