Author Topic: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space  (Read 1751 times)

Offline Tatsujin

  • Box Fansubs
  • Member
  • Posts: 15633
    • Otakixus
Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« on: June 01, 2011, 05:57:50 AM »
What I read. Made me stop watching anime for some 20 minutes. Really interesting stuff there. it is about 5 years old but this is what I found on google.

So I didn't know it would be severely bad to live out in space without having some type of gravity to maintain your calcium levels. Is it possible to develop an artificial gravity? The other problem is water and oxygen. You can do a greenhouse which isn't the biggest problem. But those few problems are what seems to face us.

Can you guys seriously imagine if we could live in a life like in Macross Frontier?

If you have any updates or interesting reads about Traveling in Space do post them please.


¸¸,.-~*'¨¨¨™¤¦ Otakixus ¦¤™¨¨¨'*~-.,¸¸

Online kitamesume

  • Member
  • Posts: 7224
  • Death is pleasure, Living is torment.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2011, 06:25:17 AM »
centrifugal force can be applied to mimic gravity.

water can be recycled through filtering pee and stuffs.

space stations(really are existing) holds a few people that stays there for a couple of months, true enough they suffer calcium deficiency but aren't lethal.

Haruhi Dance | EMO | OLD SETs | ^ I know how u feel | Click sig to Enlarge

Offline Lupin

  • Member
  • Posts: 2169
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2011, 07:25:38 AM »
Some issues which quickly came into mind from reading the thread title:

1. How do you lift a nuclear reactor big enough to support life into space?
2. How do you reduce the risks on life with using a nuclear reactor onboard?

Offline Freedom Kira

  • Member
  • Posts: 4324
  • Rawr™.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2011, 07:54:43 AM »
It's not only calcium deficiency - muscle atrophy is another serious problem that also results from the lack of gravity.

If you haven't already, give the book Ender's Game a read. I found it pretty interesting, though not at the time that I first read it, since I was around jr. high age. I read it a second time in high school, IIRC. The way they deal with space travel is pretty interesting.

Centripetal force is definitely a viable option. Remember that you need some kind of force that pushes you against a surface, and centripetal force would be the easiest, most familiar way to achieve that. To achieve desirable results, though, a sufficiently large system would have to be spinning rather fast, since centripetal force drops exponentially w.r.t. radius.

The problem with a greenhouse is that it requires sunlight. This would be a more prevalent problem if you plan to travel far from the sun. Yes, you could use artificial lighting, but for that you'd need to produce energy. The most efficient form of self-sustained energy production would be nuclear fusion, which would be like having an artificial sun, but of course that is currently not feasible. Nuclear fission would make more sense in a spacecraft, but just how long would that last you?

Right now I'm envisioning a large, donut-shaped structure of about 1km in diameter, with a hole in the middle of about 500m in diameter, and some kind of durable transparent material lining the portion of the structure that faces the inside. In the middle, outside of the structure but inside the hole, is where the artificial sun would be. The structure would have several floors, of course. Assuming we can build such a structure, here are some things to think about.

I'm not sure how many people that would sustain, but for long-term travel, the initial inhabitants should consist of young couples and fill about a quarter to a third of the structure, assuming the structure is capable of providing resources to everyone when the structure is full. This way, several generations can live on the ship, with the younger ones taking over the task of maintaining the structure as the older generations pass on.

Food would be an interesting problem, as just eating fruits and vegetables grown in a greenhouse can't exactly be good for your health. You need some kind of meat and dairy products, or everyone will die upon setting foot on some unknown planet because of the lack of energy. That means you'd have to bring some livestock onboard, enough to feed everyone, and enough to breed.

Water is the next big thing. Think about everything you do that requires water, other than consumption - cooking, washing, and bathing are the main three. You'd need to be able to cover that for everyone onboard, so there needs to be some high-scale filtration system.

Waste is another problem. How much garbage do you throw out every day? Where's all that going to go? You can't just burn everything. Chuck it into the artificial sun, perhaps? And what happens when stuff breaks down? Nothing lasts forever. You'd need multiple tradespeople on board if you intend to keep everything running for a long time.

It would not make sense to shut off a nuclear fusion reaction for 8 hours every 24 hours because it takes so much energy to get it going, so either it's constant daylight or sleeping quarters would have to be at the far end of the structure, away from the sun. That brings up another problem - travel. Perhaps you can have several 500m long elevators that run from top to bottom. They would have to be incredibly energy efficient to avoid putting a huge load on the energy source.

Finally, recreation. This is not as trivial as you might think. Do you honestly expect people to be content with a lifestyle without any kind of entertainment? No sports, no TV, no Internet, no video games... perhaps you'll have books to read, at least.

In the end, you're practically creating a miniature planet, just in a different shape. Makes you realize just how much everyone depends on everyone else, huh? Maybe it'd even be easier to just propel the Earth - that way you'd only really need to think of a viable energy source that you can reproduce all over the planet.

Edit: Just gave it a read. The 1G acceleration idea is rather interesting, but rather dangerous.
For one, at ~10m/s2 acceleration, you would reach the speed of light (300 km/s~300 000km/s to three significant digits) in ~30 000 000 seconds, or about a year, assuming you can sustain that acceleration. That means you can't accelerate at 1G and then turn around just once at halfway - you'd have to do this repeatedly. That means that if you are heading somewhere outside of our galaxy...
And for two, navigation in space is more difficult than the guy makes it seem. There's very little friction and air resistance in space - people can't seem to grasp that fact. At those speeds, if you're heading straight at an asteroid, you're sure to die. You can't suddenly dodge it, even if you were going at a regular walking pace, unless you have some incredibly specialized thrusters pointing in all directions.
And finally, for three, it's very rare that you'd be able to travel in a straight line all the way to the destination. Take that into account along with the first point, and you end up with some very complex calculations to determine the optimum path.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2011, 02:23:09 PM by Freedom Kira »

Offline Mirgond

  • Member
  • Posts: 934
    • Play Asia Affiliate Site
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2011, 09:56:34 AM »
Edit: Just gave it a read. The 1G acceleration idea is rather interesting, but rather dangerous.
For one, at ~10m/s2 acceleration, you would reach the speed of light (300 km/s) in ~30 000 seconds, or 8.3 hours, assuming you can sustain that acceleration. That means you can't accelerate at 1G and then turn around just once at halfway - you'd have to do this repeatedly.
And for two, navigation in space is more difficult than the guy makes it seem. There's very little friction and air resistance in space - people can't seem to grasp that fact. At those speeds, if you're heading straight at an asteroid, you're sure to die. You can't suddenly dodge it, even if you were going at a regular walking pace, unless you have some incredibly specialized thrusters pointing in all directions.
And finally, for three, it's very rare that you'd be able to travel in a straight line all the way to the destination. Take that into account along with the first point, and you end up with some very complex calculations to determine the optimum path.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the last time i checked the speed of light was 300000km/s...

And you die at much much lower speeds if you hit an asteroid than 300km/s...

Online kitamesume

  • Member
  • Posts: 7224
  • Death is pleasure, Living is torment.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2011, 10:04:20 AM »
Teleportation > light speed travel

even if teleportation has delays its still the better pick, though watch out for wrong input of coordinates.

Haruhi Dance | EMO | OLD SETs | ^ I know how u feel | Click sig to Enlarge

Offline Freedom Kira

  • Member
  • Posts: 4324
  • Rawr™.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #6 on: June 01, 2011, 02:20:12 PM »
Sorry to disappoint you, but the last time i checked the speed of light was 300000km/s...

And you die at much much lower speeds if you hit an asteroid than 300km/s...

... Right. *facepalm* Was tired then, still tired now. Remind me not to stay up late on BBT.

The second one is pretty obvious, though, of course. The point was that if anything happens in a timeframe spanning the majority of the flight, you're screwed.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2011, 02:24:35 PM by Freedom Kira »

Offline Tatsujin

  • Box Fansubs
  • Member
  • Posts: 15633
    • Otakixus
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #7 on: June 01, 2011, 04:23:23 PM »
Edit: Just gave it a read. The 1G acceleration idea is rather interesting, but rather dangerous.
For one, at ~10m/s2 acceleration, you would reach the speed of light (300 km/s) in ~30 000 seconds, or 8.3 hours, assuming you can sustain that acceleration. That means you can't accelerate at 1G and then turn around just once at halfway - you'd have to do this repeatedly.
And for two, navigation in space is more difficult than the guy makes it seem. There's very little friction and air resistance in space - people can't seem to grasp that fact. At those speeds, if you're heading straight at an asteroid, you're sure to die. You can't suddenly dodge it, even if you were going at a regular walking pace, unless you have some incredibly specialized thrusters pointing in all directions.
And finally, for three, it's very rare that you'd be able to travel in a straight line all the way to the destination. Take that into account along with the first point, and you end up with some very complex calculations to determine the optimum path.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the last time i checked the speed of light was 300000km/s...

And you die at much much lower speeds if you hit an asteroid than 300km/s...
Unless if we find a way to avoid such things. Has any of you watched Macross Frontier? I mean I doubt we'd be able to have such huge spaceships like them. But I'm certain we can develop a smaller space ship than what you see in Macross Frontier and it would allow us to travel without worry about other things.

I remember reading this from some expert talking about ... closing the distance of space between your location and the target location your trying to travel to - kinda like teleportation, but not a real teleportation. It's like you pull the space

This is pretty cool - Traveling through Space video.


¸¸,.-~*'¨¨¨™¤¦ Otakixus ¦¤™¨¨¨'*~-.,¸¸

Offline newy

  • Staff
  • Member
  • Posts: 6782
  • Yack...Deculture!
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #8 on: June 01, 2011, 04:28:15 PM »
Eh, first let there be a successor to the Space Shuttle... Let the US or any other country with a space program get the millions to create a successor... even then you can't talk about interstellar ships...

I knew nothing of the outside world. I was just a frog in a well.

Online kitamesume

  • Member
  • Posts: 7224
  • Death is pleasure, Living is torment.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #9 on: June 01, 2011, 04:47:25 PM »
just wait till they finish their new launch pad, they were thinking of using the railgun as an accelerator to at least remove that chunky rocket off the shuttle.
NASA proposes the ScramJet Rail Gun to launch Spacecrafts

remember the launch pads used on the gundams? those are some good examples of what they're gonna be doing.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2011, 04:59:29 PM by kitamesume »

Haruhi Dance | EMO | OLD SETs | ^ I know how u feel | Click sig to Enlarge

Offline TMRNetShark

  • Member
  • Posts: 4134
  • I thumps up my own youtube comments.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #10 on: June 01, 2011, 05:06:02 PM »
just wait till they finish their new launch pad, they were thinking of using the railgun as an accelerator to at least remove that chunky rocket off the shuttle.
NASA proposes the ScramJet Rail Gun to launch Spacecrafts

remember the launch pads used on the gundams? those are some good examples of what they're gonna be doing.

They already have cool "accelerators" on aircraft carriers. Instead of using a really powerful piston, they are gonna use a railgun! Hoorah for magnets!

Offline billlanam

  • Member
  • Posts: 316
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #11 on: June 02, 2011, 05:58:48 AM »
Actually you can never reach the speed of light with constant 1g acceleration, because the slowing down of time for you, which means you would get closer and closer to light speed, but never quite get there.

And if you should somehow ever get to the speed of light, then you would be stuck there forever, since you would be in a permanent stasis, forever frozen, going at the speed of light forever.  Photons actually have an extremely short life span, but because they are moving at the speed of light, they last forever.

Offline Tatsujin

  • Box Fansubs
  • Member
  • Posts: 15633
    • Otakixus
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #12 on: June 02, 2011, 12:32:15 PM »
Actually you can never reach the speed of light with constant 1g acceleration, because the slowing down of time for you, which means you would get closer and closer to light speed, but never quite get there.

And if you should somehow ever get to the speed of light, then you would be stuck there forever, since you would be in a permanent stasis, forever frozen, going at the speed of light forever.  Photons actually have an extremely short life span, but because they are moving at the speed of light, they last forever.

That's scary.


¸¸,.-~*'¨¨¨™¤¦ Otakixus ¦¤™¨¨¨'*~-.,¸¸

Online kitamesume

  • Member
  • Posts: 7224
  • Death is pleasure, Living is torment.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #13 on: June 02, 2011, 12:33:22 PM »
thats why teleporting is the best way to go  :D

Haruhi Dance | EMO | OLD SETs | ^ I know how u feel | Click sig to Enlarge

Offline Tatsujin

  • Box Fansubs
  • Member
  • Posts: 15633
    • Otakixus
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #14 on: June 02, 2011, 12:42:16 PM »
thats why teleporting is the best way to go  :D
Is that even scientifically possible?


¸¸,.-~*'¨¨¨™¤¦ Otakixus ¦¤™¨¨¨'*~-.,¸¸

Online kitamesume

  • Member
  • Posts: 7224
  • Death is pleasure, Living is torment.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #15 on: June 02, 2011, 12:45:50 PM »
well why not? if time traveling would be possible then so is teleportation.

Haruhi Dance | EMO | OLD SETs | ^ I know how u feel | Click sig to Enlarge

Offline Lupin

  • Member
  • Posts: 2169
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #16 on: June 02, 2011, 01:45:22 PM »
Is that even scientifically possible?

well why not? if time traveling would be possible then so is teleportation.

Teleportation involves breaking down matter in one location then rebuilding it in another.

This poses several issues.

1. How do you make sure that the reconstructed matter is the same as the original? By same I mean a particle level exact copy of the original, including the states and speeds of each. You cannot determine all those at once (Uncertainty principle).

2. Now, let's assume you can do (1). The amount of bandwidth required to transmit all that information is very, very large. Even if you can send it at lightspeeds, sending the information will still take time. It won't be as instantaneous as the media (movies, tv shows) suggests.

3. If you teleport a human, you technically killed the person then recreated him/her in another location. This might raise the eyebrows of some.

Offline Tatsujin

  • Box Fansubs
  • Member
  • Posts: 15633
    • Otakixus
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #17 on: June 02, 2011, 02:16:52 PM »
Is that even scientifically possible?

well why not? if time traveling would be possible then so is teleportation.

Teleportation involves breaking down matter in one location then rebuilding it in another.

This poses several issues.

1. How do you make sure that the reconstructed matter is the same as the original? By same I mean a particle level exact copy of the original, including the states and speeds of each. You cannot determine all those at once (Uncertainty principle).

2. Now, let's assume you can do (1). The amount of bandwidth required to transmit all that information is very, very large. Even if you can send it at lightspeeds, sending the information will still take time. It won't be as instantaneous as the media (movies, tv shows) suggests.

3. If you teleport a human, you technically killed the person then recreated him/her in another location. This might raise the eyebrows of some.
Can't they develop something like warpping the object from one place and making it appear in another? Not teleporting, but actual warping. So basically, there's a door in front of you but it's blocked by squishy material. You walk through it, and as your walking your body appears through the other side of the door in another location.


¸¸,.-~*'¨¨¨™¤¦ Otakixus ¦¤™¨¨¨'*~-.,¸¸

Online kitamesume

  • Member
  • Posts: 7224
  • Death is pleasure, Living is torment.
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #18 on: June 02, 2011, 02:23:59 PM »
if only humans didnt kill off witchcraft and/or sorcery then we might be developing such a thing by now :D

on the other hand, what about instantaneous conductivity? i mean transporting matter through conducting one part of it through matter into another. though the system required would be godly i bet.

Haruhi Dance | EMO | OLD SETs | ^ I know how u feel | Click sig to Enlarge

Offline Lupin

  • Member
  • Posts: 2169
Re: Nuclear Experiments to travel through Space
« Reply #19 on: June 02, 2011, 02:28:24 PM »
Can't they develop something like warpping the object from one place and making it appear in another? Not teleporting, but actual warping. So basically, there's a door in front of you but it's blocked by squishy material. You walk through it, and as your walking your body appears through the other side of the door in another location.
Your "warping" is similar to wormholes.

That also has issues.

1. How do you make it big enough for a human to pass?
2. How do you make it stable and last long enough for a big object to pass?
3. You do not know where the other end of a wormhole leads to. The other end might lead you to a surface of a star or even worse, a blackhole.

if only humans didnt kill off witchcraft and/or sorcery then we might be developing such a thing by now :D

on the other hand, what about instantaneous conductivity? i mean transporting matter through conducting one part of it through matter into another. though the system required would be godly i bet.
instantaneous conductivity? wtf is that?
« Last Edit: June 02, 2011, 03:29:55 PM by Lupin »