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A first blueprint for interstellar travel



 
 
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  #11  
Old September 26th 04, 08:42 PM
Abdul Ahad
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"Rodney Kelp" wrote in message ...
People like to think a star ship would look similar to the Enteprise in Star
Trek. It would probably look more like the Battlestar Galactica.

Oh absolutely. If my hopes and dreams come true one day of turning
this concept into a feature length sci-fi movie (if only some
thoughtful movie company would take on my screenplay and the fictional
script I've written around it!), I'd like to make such a movie
extremely worthwhile watching and thought-provoking in its depth...

Few science fiction movies made these days capture the imagination by
portraying the true immensities and eternity of interstellar space.
Here's to my hoping...

Abdul Ahad

http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagen...ropulsion.html


Specifically, I would like to know if anyone has thoughts on whether
an inter-vessel, ship-to-comet robotic attachment of some kind could
be built (with technology easy to visualise in the current era), which
scoops up and proceses the frozen material from comets into water and
hydrogen/oxygen for power and life support. The robotic arm would dig
into the exterior ice of the comet upon a gentle, speed-matched
docking rendezvous in-flight.

My starship concept demands a large scale structure extending perhaps
a few kilometres in length. Is our current materials science
technology adequate to build and operate something on that scale that
would be robust enough for the job to take the stresses involved where
the asteroid has a spin as well?

A further complexity is to rotate my asteroid to create artificial
gravity. As the robotic mining "arms" are going to be erected to
either side of the cylindrical asteroid body, upon contact with comets
the spin rate would slow down due to the added mass of the comet. If
the asteroid is say 10km long and 5km wide (and highly dense e.g. 2.9
grams/cm^3), and the cometary nucleus captured by the arms is say just
2 or 3km in diameter (with a density equivalent to that of water,
since its "icy"), would the spin rate of the asteroid slow very
drastically in such an encounter?

My last point is if my asteroid is rotating along a spin axis which
runs through the *length* of its body (through the core), what are my
options of "pitching" the asteroid from side to side without
disrupting the spin rate (and the artificial gravity that it
generates)? Would it be feasible to use *pulse* thrust at favourable
intervals if I wanted to turn the body around?

Thanks for all thoughts.
Abdul Ahad



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  #12  
Old September 30th 04, 02:55 PM
Derek Clarke
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Or the /Discovery/ from 2001.

"Rodney Kelp" wrote in message ...
People like to think a star ship would look similar to the Enteprise in Star
Trek. It would probably look more like the Battlestar Galactica.

"Abdul Ahad" wrote in message
m...
I was toying with this idea for a *possible* futuristic voyage to
Alpha Centauri, with a big emphasis on water and life support resource
mining from comets and planetoids encountered along the journey:-

  #13  
Old October 23rd 04, 07:21 PM
Ian Stirling
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Parallax wrote:
snip
People have proposed solar sails driven by laser or maser close to the
sun. Having the power source stay home has many advantages. However,
even a laser has some beam divergence so that as the sail gets VERY
far away the sail intercepts very little of the beam. You can imagine
concentrating the beam with some sort of lens but there is no material
that could withstand the required power densities. Furthermore, to
get good angular resolution of the beam with such a lens, you need
very large apertures, many tens of miles. People have proposed large
mirror systems consisting of very thin polymer but as these get very
large, they might be difficult to fabricate or control.
I propose an alternative to such a lens or mirror.


Err, no.
Power densities at the lens can be quite modest.
 




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