[annodomini2]

Tasmodevil44 wrote: Come to think of it, there’s just no end to the creative ideas and ways you could possibly have hybrid FF reactor / other propulsion for a spacecraft to make it more flexible and versatile.

Its the holy grail of spaceship technology development atm, and electric based propulsion system that can get you into orbit.

Ideally requiring no propellant.

[annodomini2]

Jolly Roger wrote:

Again interesting, would the charged particles from the solar wind be drawn into the the sail? And other matter around the spacecraft?

Just thinking if there is a need to carry mass to maintain the sail.

ETA: other than the power supply systems of course.

From what I’ve read, there will be some absorption of particles from the solar wind into the plasma sail, but not enough to make up for leakage. So, yes, there is still a need to carry mass to maintain the sail.

ETA?

Edited to Add

[annodomini2]

Again interesting, would the charged particles from the solar wind be drawn into the the sail? And other matter around the spacecraft?

Just thinking if there is a need to carry mass to maintain the sail.

ETA: other than the power supply systems of course.

[annodomini2]

Tasmodevil44 wrote: Or for greater versatility of propulsion, you could use a combination of focus fusion techniques, instead of just one. I still don’t know exactly what advantages such a system might have right off – hand, but what if you employed both a focus fusion laser for solar sailing, as well as an additional onboard focus fusion rocket or ion engine?

Every time your solar sailing craft wandered out of the path of the fusion – powered laser beam, onboard fusion thrusters could also propel it back into the laser beam for additional thrust.

Also, in sailboat sailing, there’s such a thing called tacking, where you can actually propel a craft upwind and against the wind. To do this, the sailboat has to travel in a zig – zag fashion back and forth. In a similar way, onboard fusion engine thrusters might be able to propel a craft back and forth in such a way as to catch the solar wind easier for travelling upwind against it. This way, you would have two methods of propulsion working together and assisting each other.

Why not just move the laser?

[annodomini2]

Jolly Roger wrote: Here is a site for scifi writers that has some interesting information.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3c2.html#table

It states that we may expect a Hydrogen-Boron rocket engine to have an exhaust velocity of 980 km/sec, thrust of 61 kN and engine mass of 300 metric tons.

We expect an FF engine to have a mass closer to 3 tons, but perhaps the other numbers are in the ballpark. If so, our spacecraft will have a top speed of 980 km/sec or 0.33% of the speed of light. I think that relativistic effects will be minimal.

With a top speed such a small fraction of the speed of light, extra-solar missions will be limited to robots, sleepers or generation ships. However, it should do fine for getting around the solar system, even out to the brown dwarf, Barbarossa, thought by some amateur astronomers to be orbiting the Sun, currently at about 218 AU.

http://www.metaresearch.org/msgboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=770&whichpage=33

The critical factor then is the thrust. At 61 kN, our 100-metric ton ship will have an acceleration of 61 cm/sec^2. It would hit top speed in a few weeks, but it would still take 13 months to accelerate, coast/cruise, and decelerate to Barbarossa. A larger ship, with the 2,000 ton mass of the Space Shuttle, would take 25 months for the same journey.

The brown dwarf Barbarossa is not to be confused with the asteroid of the same name. Barbarossa may be the Dark Star Marduk/Nibiru that author Andy Lloyd is looking for.

http://www.darkstar1.co.uk/solution.html

The maximum speed of the ship is not limited by the exhaust velocity as the action is relative

Due to newtons 1st law:”Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed”

There is very little friction in the approximate vacuum of space so relatively no force to slow the ship

Due to Newtons 2nd law: “The change of momentum of a body is proportional to the impulse impressed on the body, and happens along the straight line on which that impulse is impressed”

As the action is relative the force remains constant

And Newtons 3rd law: “For a force there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions.”

Just because the ejected mass is stationary or moving away from relative to the earth it is still travelling at 980km/sec relative to the ship

If your statement was the case we would never achieve orbit with current technology

The speed limitation is mainly one of fuel, the ship will keep accelerating forever with infinite fuel and time, however as you approach the speed of light the net acceleration drops significantly as the relative mass increases.

[annodomini2]

Breakable wrote: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2589/fission-fusion-hybrids-could-mop-nuclear-waste

Seems to require the change in fuel to produce neutrons.
Should be much easier to archieve than the aneutronic fusion,
and can provide a flow of cash until the research and engineering for it is completed.

Thought this had been posted already

[annodomini2]

Jolly Roger wrote: According to information in the patent application, the maximum net output of each reactor vessel is 5 MW Alpha beam and 2 MW X-rays. With conversion losses, that would be about 5 – 6 MW electricity. However, the capacitor bank, which is the most massive component, can power up to 500 reactor vessels, so total installation output could be as high as 2.5 – 3 GW.

A 2,000 TW application would require 666,667 – 800,000 FF installations.

I will leave it to others with more information to correct mine and/or calculate the mass and volume.

Big then, could be interesting

Is there any scalable possibility for the technology?

[annodomini2]

Given current information and extrapolations, what sort of volume and mass would a 2000TW focus fusion reactor need to be?

Just an idea i’m playing with.

[annodomini2]

dead link

[annodomini2]

Tasmodevil44 wrote: Scientists have already developed something called a free electron laser that amplifies a laser by having photons of light in a laser beam travel parallel to an electron beam and a channel of magnets. As the magnets wiggle the electron beam, it imparts energy to the laser photons.

I have wondered if the FF could power a free alpha laser instead, where the negative charged electrons are substituted and replaced by the positive alpha beam coming out of the FF reactor. It would work in much the same way : the alpha particles are wiggled by magnetic fields, transferring their energy over to the laser photons …… thereby amplifying it.

But like Lerner said, the United States, Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain, etc. already have enough weapons to destroy the entire world many times over. Who really needs more ?

However, I can see some peaceful applications of a free alpha laser driven by the energetic alpha beam of the FF reactor. Perhaps a powerful pulsed beam could be an alternative way to blast a road tunnel or a railroad tunnel through a mountain or something.

I know this may be drifting a little off the main subject here, but I just decided to mention this as still yet another possible application of the DPF in the future.

Or use the laser for some of the solar sail space propulsion concepts?

[annodomini2]

From the lack of response is my suggestion completely irrelevant?

[annodomini2]

I suggest we make this thread a sticky as I would guess this will be a popular question and will save reposts

[annodomini2]

From reading the article, they are using an old method but a new detector, doesn’t say how they are going to capture and store them which is the major challenge.

Matter/Antimatter reactions can produce a lot of energy, the problem is controlling the reaction and extracting the energy into a useful form.

If Antimatter can be made cheaply and efficiently (currently the most costly material to make) something along the lines of $100 Trillion a gram.

It is potentially capable of being an energy source, but I see its future more in line with deep space propulsion (not warp drive), but an antimatter rocket.

[annodomini2]

I believe there are machines like this prototyped and already under test.

[annodomini2]

Now that’s what I’ve been looking for, one way to deal with nuclear fission waste, turn it into something that’s producing energy for us.

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