Spaceship Design

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

...Pyro, The ANSJ of the wahoots is streching it but I love you idea of the m&m shell ship, so how is the train powered, is there a power plant that utilises the antimatter?...

Abaft of the central magbottles holding the anti-hydrogen are the plasma turbines. Nanogram quantities of anti-H are mixed with water producing a plasma that drives ordinary high-efficiency turbines, producing all the electrical power you need. The plasma is normally vented to space. During wahoot-travel, the plasma is vented into the toroidal water tank.

[Kayra]

Is antimatter required?

How about this for an in system propulsion method.

Create a solar reflector using current suggestions for a solar sail.
It should be circular, approx 100 KM in diameter, and be spinning.
Around the perimeter, place small ion motors to spin and correct the reflector.
The design should form a parabolic dish when the sunlight’s pressure is exerted on the entire structure.
At the focal point, use a mirror to direct the energy in a kilometer wide beam towards our traveling ship.
Drop this structure into a polar orbit just a bit closer then the orbit of Mercury.

At a guess, this should be able to harness approx 300 GWhrs or energy, so some losses are acceptable.

Solar constant Mercury 9,130.00
Radius of Sail (Meters) 100,000.00
Area of Sail (Meters) 31,415,926,535.90
GWHrs 286,827.00

The ship design would require the ability to capture and focus this 1KM wide beam of power.

If the Ship design included a solar sail that again acted as a reflector, a 1KM wide sail should not really present much of a problem.
Focus the energy onto your reaction mass, and direct the explosively expanding mass as required.
The reaction mass could be anything from hydrogen to iron. It does not really matter, and so would allow the ship to “Refuel” from almost any space debris.

[Jay-qu]

that was your 1,000th post Pyro nice one!

so what makes these turbines highly-efficient? we are talking ANSJ not just stating the ideal

[Jay-qu]

sorry Kayra I dont want the ship to have a solar sail - I doesnt seem dynamic enough, how would you travel towards the sun? Maybe we could include one to save energy when moving away from the sun..

[Kayra]

WOOHOO, 1000 posts. Grats

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

sorry Kayra I don't want the ship to have a solar sail - I doesnt seem dynamic enough, how would you travel towards the sun? Maybe we could include one to save energy when moving away from the sun..

LOL, perhaps I was not clear. That sail technology is used to make a solar reflector. Something to focus the kilometer wide beam of energy we are sending from the sun.

Sorry for the lack of clarity there.

Traveling towards the sun, the reflector is in front of the ship. Using a mast in front of the ship, and the spinning edges of the reflector all tethered to the mast (like pointing an umbrella handle first towards the sun)

Traveling away, you simply let the umbrella turn inside out, and support the center of it instead of the edges. (assuming the spinning is sufficient for it to keep i's shape under acceleration)

[Kayra]

<sigh>
Anti-matter is so much sexier.

[Jay-qu]

Originally Posted by Kayra

Traveling towards the sun, the reflector is in front of the ship. Using a mast in front of the ship, and the spinning edges of the reflector all tethered to the mast (like pointing an umbrella handle first towards the sun)

How is that supposed to create acceleration towards the sun? The sail works because of the solar wind yes? I dont see any way possible for it to go 'upstream' without outside help

[Tarantism]

this thread is really cool. just thought yall should know that.

[Kayra]

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

How is that supposed to create acceleration towards the sun? The sail works because of the solar wind yes? I dont see any way possible for it to go 'upstream' without outside help

Nope, this is not a sail
It is a reflector
It focuses the energy from the sun onto our reactor.. heating the reactant, and creating thrust. (we send the reactant out the back of the ship after we heat it to 2,500 degrees or so.

reread my posts "Is antimatter required?"

[Jay-qu]

ohh I understand now I can see many troubles with this design, one slight miscalculation and we are all fried!