Astronomy / Space Deep Space Travel Propulsion systems

Thargon

Thargon
I'll start this one off. Space is a big place, almost inconceivably big. I recommend this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fde6AIyZZ2c

to attempt to comprehend the distances involved.

So, with all the recent planet hunting going on, what are the chances that we will actually get there in say 50 to 100 years time (2113 anyone?).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_propulsion

This is a good start for reading. There's also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_engine. (with which I am most impressed at the moment).

There's also theories of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_detonation_engine, though I'm more sceptical about the practicalities of that.

Maybe fusion/plasma drives are on the horizon with all the work on ITER happening? Who knows? Science and Engineering is facinating and astronomy too!
 

Oddball

Oddball
Some interesting stuff there Thargon.

I have for a while had my own idea which is to capture a large asteroid, terraform it (inside) and mine it for the minerals needed for fuel while traveling through space.

The asteroid would first have to be fully surveyed of course but living inside it would protect people from harmful radiation. The asteroid could easily be made to be manoeuvrable with a bit of ingenuity.
 
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Darren Grey

Darren Grey
Thargon said:
So, with all the recent planet hunting going on, what are the chances that we will actually get there in say 50 to 100 years time (2113 anyone?).
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Zero. Sorry, but it really is absolutely zero. The best we've gotten is the Voyager crafts launched in the 70s, both of which took advantage of rare planetary line-ups to get good slingshot speeds. In the ~40 years since we haven't got the tech to even approach those speeds yet. We haven't a hope of doing much better in the next 100.

Space is really really big, as you say, but you also have to appreciate that we are horribly slow at getting anywhere. Mars takes 2 years, and that's right next door.

Maybe fusion/plasma drives are on the horizon with all the work on ITER happening? Who knows? Science and Engineering is facinating and astronomy too!
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Uh, nope on this as well, as we'll be lucky to have working power stations the size of a large factory by the end of the century. No chance of getting one of those into space for several hundred years. Much better off with smaller fission devices or ion drives.
 

Listeri69

Listeri69
ye of little faith darren

just think where we have come in 100 years

the invention of the combustion engine, flight, recorded sound, computers

could you even conceive a CD 40 years ago... its mindboggling how fast progress can actually be i think its not nasa we will be turning to for space travel but the independants, they are going to want to be the first to do things soon, the first ones to put passengers into space, then the first flight around the moon, then they are going to want you to stay on the moon in a hotel, someone is going to want to be the first passengers to mars and so on and so on until someone says were going to alpha centurii.....
 

Darren Grey

Darren Grey
Mass market technologies advance very fast, but single-market government driven science does not. Look at how slowly we've improved at space travel in recent years. The main drivers for improvement have been sensors and computing, both mass market technologies. Propulsion systems have not significantly changed in the last 30 years. Until it gets to the point that millions are in space we will not see a real step-up in development pace. Even then the challenges are huge. Alpha Centauri is an inconceivable distance away!

Yes, it's depressing, but that's reality for you ;)
 

Geraldine

Geraldine
Following on from Darren's comment below, to see real advancements in propulsion technology, we need a real life Wayland corporation to realise there is money to be made up there. Once that is done, then a real push to advance technologies can begin.
 

Kodan Tor

Kodan Tor
As usual it needs governments to pull together and realise that if they work together EVERYONE will benefit,once we get a decent permanently manned space station and staging post to start to exploit asteroids etc, businesses will start to expand offplanet and then things will start happening exponentially.
 

dannysquid

dannysquid
What are the fastest natural objects out there? I'm thinking asteroids, rogue planets, comets etc rather than particles. Is there anything we could hitch a ride on?
 

Perseus

Perseus
I actually think the best solution is to develop a way to increase Human longevity. If we lived for 200 years (not old and infirm) then maybe a 50year voyage wouldn't be such a huge investment for a person to make.
I know increased life span is a crazy idea on a world that's approaching bursting point but that's also a fantastic reason for us to get out there!
I agree with Listeri69 in that a 100 years we might see unimaginable technologies created and that the last century of flight saw us get to the moon starting from a kite but we've also realised the distances involved even to local stars. We are back to square one in terms of stellar navigational ability.
Then again, there could a fundamental breakthrough brewing in someone's shed!
 

Kodan Tor

Kodan Tor
im sure i read somewhere <apologies if it isnt true> that we already have quite decent propulsion systems invented and even tested,its just that they are nuclear powered and so havent been readily taken up for space propulsion.
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
Listeri69 said:
the first ones to put passengers into space, then the first flight around the moon, then they are going to want you to stay on the moon in a hotel, someone is going to want to be the first passengers to mars and so on and so on until someone says were going to alpha centurii.....
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I like the end of the text. "Alpha Centauri". Feeling that the beginning of the great journey begins at that moment.

(Collected on the web) : The morning suns rise upon an alien world. This planet belongs to Alpha Centauri B, the smaller one of the system. Some plant-like vegetation is growing inside the tidal zone of this unexplored shore - I leave it to your own speculation as to how far the evolution has progressed on this world. Alpha Centauri A, although 20 times more distant than B, is still visible as a bright second sun.

4174047.jpg
 

jan

jan
We cud say we stil at interplanetary age , the Space age is when someone set a fot on a planet around a distant star.:smilie:
 

Thargon

Thargon
Some interesting comments, although I had hoped to broaden the discussion and open a few more minds.

Who would have thought we'd be discussing Elite Dangerous even five years ago, or discussing a mulitplayer driven space simulation on the internet, or even where the internet has exploded in the last fifteen years?

Computing power has increased exponentially (i.e. Moore's Law), we are approaching the Quantum domain for microelectronics. Who knows what next breakthrough will be discovered in our short lifetimes?

And propulsion systems? There's recent talk of Cambridge Propulsion systems creating a Mach 6 scramjet that's in development - even the Government have jumped on board now - where is that going to go?

It's not only computing power that's increasing exponentially, but the World population too. How sustainable do you think that's going to be? I guess inter planetary exploration will happen - it will just be a matter of when.

As to interstellar - who knows. Just's need more visionary people working in this area I guess.

There's loads of reading here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_propulsion
 
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Thargon

Thargon
Oddball said:
Some interesting stuff there Thargon.

I have for a while had my own idea which is to capture a large asteroid, terraform it (inside) and mine it for the minerals needed for fuel while traveling through space.

The asteroid would first have to be fully surveyed of course but living inside it would protect people from harmful radiation. The asteroid could easily be made to be manoeuvrable with a bit of ingenuity.
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Sounds interesting :) Much like the generational concept for interstellar travel.
 

Thargon

Thargon
Geraldine said:
Following on from Darren's comment below, to see real advancements in propulsion technology, we need a real life Wayland corporation to realise there is money to be made up there. Once that is done, then a real push to advance technologies can begin.
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Smells like the asteroid mining news stories that were on the bbc news site some time ago.

Edit: Ooops this post made no sense at all! I was thinking that if this company existed, they would want to start somewhere. I was thinking about the other asteroid mining post by Oddball I think.
 

Elendil

Elendil
Taken the fact that one of the two big spacefaring nations currently lack of crafts to get people even into low earth orbits, I would say there is no hope on going further than those few hundert miles up very soon.

Unfortunately, spacetravel has become very expensive, and noone with money is really interested in funding, so we stay here and quarrel about the mundane stuff on the surface of this planet. Only if we change the way of thinking throughout the whole world we will change this. I'm not thinking about funding the more technical directions of education, but changing the way humanity is longing to the stars.

Otherwise, with slower-than-light travel, only a generation-ship will be able to go somewhere, and it will take many generations. If we manage to create these ships, we have to think of earth as 'seeding' the galaxy: sending ships, but probably never hearing from them again.

FTL travel doesn't exist (yet?), and every speed that's slower than 'instant-jump' is too slow. 1000x light-speed? Great, takes us only 30 years to get to the center of our own galaxy...
 

Thargon

Thargon
Yea. First though we need to explore what's out there. Sure astronomy can see very far into the past (the further you look, the further back in time you are seeing as the photon's hit your eye).

However, seeing as the furthest man-made-object has only just exited the Heliosphere (Voyager) - we actually haven't gone very far yet on the grand scale of things.

I guess when we make more modern probes that can go faster, for longer, we might find something interesting out there! (Maybe)
 

Thargon

Thargon
Sorry to ressurrect an old thread, but I found this article on T'internet, and I thought I'd share it with y'all.

I thought it was interesting:

http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=250

(It's about deep space propulsion) and some other sciency stuff.

More stuff here:

http://www.tauzero.aero/discoveries-log/getting-there/starship-designs/propulsion-ideas/

Though contains some handwavium and fictional (i.e sci-fi) systems too.

A very nice page with a lot of propulsion ideas:

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/advanced_propulsion_concepts.html

(Not a lot of detail but was interesting and there's a good list of stuff).
 
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