Traveling to Mars or further and another subject: The Subject of Energy

On Thursday, September 11, 2014 10:31:57 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Anyone ever look up using Google the Orion Project???



Well, it is an honest to goodness plan that actually would



have gotten us to the nearest star for real.





Basically this ship would have been huge and used many many many nuclear explosions from the rear of the ship...



Anyone willing to live for 100-130 years could make the trip.



Take a look using google: orion project



here is clip of text from Wikipedia:



This article is about the 1950s nuclear propulsion project. For other spaceflight vehicles called Orion, see Orion in astronautics.

An artist's conception of the NASA reference design for the Project Orion spacecraft powered by nuclear propulsion.



Project Orion was a study of a spacecraft intended to be directly propelled by a series of explosions of atomic bombs behind the craft (nuclear pulse propulsion). Early versions of this vehicle were proposed to take off from the ground with significant associated nuclear fallout; later versions were presented for use only in space.



A 1955 Los Alamos Laboratory document states (without offering references) that general proposals were first made by Stanislaw Ulam in 1946, and that preliminary calculations were made by F. Reines and Ulam in a Los Alamos memorandum dated 1947.[1] The actual project, initiated in 1958, was led by Ted Taylor at General Atomics and physicist Freeman Dyson, who at Taylor's request took a year away from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton to work on the project.



also





There is energy you can't see but you know it is there. We all know this.



It is the air that makes up our atmosphere.



10,000 volts per centimeter (10 kV/cm)



78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen



electrons, protons, etc...



We can't see electrons right in front of us...



but there is enormous energy we cannot see.



"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

"God doesn't play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein


Let's see now, does the ship have to carry all those bombs along with it, or do we just keep shooting nuclear tipped missiles at its backside?

"One moment of inspiration is worth five years of drudgery." - Adolf Hitler

Double-A

On Saturday, September 13, 2014 12:35:23 PM UTC+12, Double-A wrote:
On Thursday, September 11, 2014 10:31:57 AM UTC-7, wrote:

Anyone ever look up using Google the Orion Project???







Well, it is an honest to goodness plan that actually would







have gotten us to the nearest star for real.











Basically this ship would have been huge and used many many many nuclear explosions from the rear of the ship...







Anyone willing to live for 100-130 years could make the trip.







Take a look using google: orion project







here is clip of text from Wikipedia:







This article is about the 1950s nuclear propulsion project. For other spaceflight vehicles called Orion, see Orion in astronautics.



An artist's conception of the NASA reference design for the Project Orion spacecraft powered by nuclear propulsion.







Project Orion was a study of a spacecraft intended to be directly propelled by a series of explosions of atomic bombs behind the craft (nuclear pulse propulsion). Early versions of this vehicle were proposed to take off from the ground with significant associated nuclear fallout; later versions were presented for use only in space.







A 1955 Los Alamos Laboratory document states (without offering references) that general proposals were first made by Stanislaw Ulam in 1946, and that preliminary calculations were made by F. Reines and Ulam in a Los Alamos memorandum dated 1947.[1] The actual project, initiated in 1958, was led by Ted Taylor at General Atomics and physicist Freeman Dyson, who at Taylor's request took a year away from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton to work on the project.







also











There is energy you can't see but you know it is there. We all know this.







It is the air that makes up our atmosphere.







10,000 volts per centimeter (10 kV/cm)







78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen







electrons, protons, etc...







We can't see electrons right in front of us...







but there is enormous energy we cannot see.







"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein



"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein



"God doesn't play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein





Let's see now, does the ship have to carry all those bombs along with it, or do we just keep shooting nuclear tipped missiles at its backside?



"One moment of inspiration is worth five years of drudgery." - Adolf Hitler



Double-A


The nuclear pulse units are more like nuclear hand grenades than strategic weapons. The pulse units release tens to hundreds of tons of TNT equivalent instead of millions of tons of TNT equivalent. The size of these systems are on the scale of aspirin tablets whereas the scale of bombs are the size of suitcases to steamer trunks. This makes the pulse units controllable.

In later designs these tiny bomblets were fission free possessing no uranium plutonium or thorium.

A fission free nuclear device uses Lithium-6 and Deuterium with a source of neutrons to release a lot of energy very quickly. The neutron multiplier of choice is primarily tungsten which produces two low energy neutrons for every high energy neutron it absorbs.

The initial neutron flux for a fission free device starts the reaction the same way a torch lights a candle. For a nuclear pulse rocket, this is created by a highly focused neutron beam built into the engine.

The Mobetron system is a medical neutron beam that consists of a lightweight linear accelerator based on X-band technology,mounted on a motor-driven C-arm gantry. This is used to irradiate a surgically exposed tumour to a very high flux of neutrons, the gantry can be rotated ±45◦ downward in a transverse plane, tilted ±30◦ in the radial plane and translated in a horizontal plane ±5 cm.

This medical neutron beam source, the Mobetron is a prototype of the type of neutron source used for fission free nuclear pulse rocketry. The Mobetron makes use of a linear accelerator head that can be moved up and down ±30 cm from its original position. It can be operated at four different energies, 4, 6, 9 and 12 MeV.

The primary process for neutron production by an electron beam is the absorption of the bremsstrahlung photons produced by the electrons (McGinley and Landy 1989). In order for a neutron to be produced, the absorbed photon must have energy greater than the binding energy of the neutron to the nucleus. Neutron production will take place in any material struck by an electron or bremsstrahlung beam above a threshold energy (Eth) which varies in general
from 10 to 19 MeV for light nuclei (A 40) and from 4 to 6 MeV for heavy nuclei. The exceptions are Eth = 2.23 MeV for deuterium and 1.67 MeV for beryllium (NCRP 79 1984).

The dominant reaction is (γ , n) with smaller quantities of neutrons produced by (γ , pn) and (γ , 2n) at higher energies. The direct production of neutrons by electrons (via virtual photons) is at least two orders of magnitude smaller than neutron production by photons. For photon energies lying in the range of threshold energy to about 30 MeV, neutron production occurs primarily through the giant resonance process, i.e., the electric field of the photon transfers
its energy to the nucleus by inducing an oscillation in which the protons as a group move in opposite direction to the neutrons as a group. Since the high-Z materials such as lead and tungsten have lower thresholds, neutron production is higher and occurs with lower photon energies than for materials with medium-Z such as copper and steel.

The pulse unit

Ten grams of Lithium-6 Deuteride in a 28.7 mm diameter sphere surrounding by a 1 mm thick tungsten sphere massing 52 grams. When detonated this releases 2.65 trillion joules of energy. The resulting plasma pulse travels at 9,237 km/sec. This is the characteristic exhaust velocity.

An array of MEMS based solid chemical rockets, built into each tungsten shell, along with Wii type solid state accelerometers, and X-box like tracking systems built into the engine, propel a 62 gram device to a detonation point at the focus of a paraboloid of revolution.

Unlike chemical reactions which require the combustion gases to be squeezed to accelerate them to supersonic speed, and then expanded to accelerate them further, (DeLaval nozzle) nuclear reasons are so energetic, all plasma particles travel in essentially light-like straight lines. The plasma bounces off surfaces, transferring momentum, and the plasma source is shaped to focus the plasma so that it interacts efficiently with the thrust surface. This means the paraboloid is not very deep. With Fresnel type angled rings carved into a plate even zero depth or negative depth is possible!

To focus the plasma, the sphere of Lithium-6 Deuteride coated with tungsten is compressed into a disk 6 mm thick and 56.9 mm in diameter. This causes the plasma to be focused along the central axis of the disk.

A pusher plate that is 5.5 meters in diameter (18 ft) with a focal point 5.5 meters removed from the plane of the plate, its the rim of the plate at 26.56 degrees - and so the surface has an angle at the rim of 13.28 degrees to direct the plasma normal to the plate's surface. If broken into 5 cm (2 inch) rings the angles are as follows for each;

Radius cm Angle degrees

275 13.28
270 13.07
265 12.86
260 12.65
255 12.44
250 12.22
245 12.01
240 11.79
235 11.57
230 11.35
225 11.12
220 10.90
215 10.68
210 10.45
205 10.22
200 9.99
195 9.76
190 9.53
185 9.30
180 9.06
175 8.83
170 8.59
165 8.35
160 8.11
155 7.87
150 7.63
145 7.38
140 7.14
135 6.90
130 6.65
125 6.40
120 6.15
115 5.90
110 5.65
105 5.40
100 5.15
95 4.90
90 4.65
85 4.39
80 4.14
75 3.88
70 3.63
65 3.37
60 3.11
55 2.86
50 2.60
45 2.34
40 2.08
35 1.82
30 1.56
25 1.30
20 1.04
15 0.78
10 0.52
5 0.26
0 0.00

The plasma has an opening angle of 52.3 degrees, and so at a detonation point 5.5 meters removed from the plate, the plasma directed toward the plate fills it. For a particle to travel to the plate along the central axis normal to the plate and back to the detonation point, requires that it travel 11 meters. For a particle to travel to the plate at an angle of 26.36 degrees to the rim of the plate from the central axis and back along normal to the plate 5.5 meters, requires that it travel a total of 11.65 meters. At a speed of 9,237 km/sec this requires 1.26 microseconds of time.

Pulse units released from the rim of the plate and flying freely to the precise centre point, and then illuminated by several Mobetron style neutron beam sources, to detonate them, move at a speed of 100 m/sec. The distance from the rim to the detonation point is 6.2 meters. So, detonation rates of 16.13x per second may be maintained.

62 grams x 16x per second is a mass flow rate of 1 kg/sec. With an exhaust speed of 9,237 km/sec this is a thrust of 941.92 tonnes of force (9.237 MN)

With a two gee acceleration, this implies a vehicle mass of 470.96 tonnes at lift off. To attain a velocity of 9.2 km/sec (needed to attain GEO after accounting for air drag and gravity losses) requires a propellant fraction of;

u = 1 - 1/exp(9.2/9237) = 0.0009955 -- 468.84 kg -- 7,562 detonations.

Divided by 16.13x per second we have 468.8 seconds. That many seconds at two gees translates to 9.2 km/sec.

A pusher plate made of plate steel that is 10 cm (4 inches) thick and 5.5 meters (18 ft) in diameter masses 19 tonnes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project..._propulsion%29

The rest of the vehicle, masses 60 tonnes.

A vehicle, once on orbit accelerating at 1/3 gee continuously fires at 2.69 times per second. We can cruise around the solar system in a few weeks.

dist prop velocity hours payload

000's
km

100 5.99 118.20 10.04 404.97
200 8.45 167.16 14.20 402.51
500 13.29 264.31 22.46 397.67

millions
km

1 18.68 373.79 31.76 392.28
2 26.20 528.61 44.92 384.76
5 40.74 835.81 71.02 370.22 - 3 days
10 56.57 1182.01 100.44 354.39
20 77.96 1671.62 142.05 333.00 - 1 week
50 117.19 2643.06 224.60 293.77
100 156.73 3737.86 317.63 254.23 - 2 weeks
200 205.23 5286.13 449.20 205.73
500 280.41 8358.10 710.25 130.55

1000 339.97 11820.14 1004.44 70.99

Instead of a single pusher plate centrally located, we can put a pusher plate assembly, with shock absorber, on a wing that supports the ship and is tipped with a landing strut. The shock absorber does double duty as a landing gear - whilst holding the pusher plate 11 meters (36 feet) above the ground. The pulse wafers are stacked like coins above the structure. The main body of the ship is supported by three wings and the tail is equipped with a self deploying staircase at the end of a large industrial airlock at the tail of the ship.

During acceleration everything points toward the floor, which is also the case when landed on Earth or any planet in the solar system. The support structure is configurable to maintain verticality for the ship and its engines..

Very much like the rockets of the 1950s - including Tintin's moon rocket!

http://philpatton.typepad.com/.a/6a0...256439c970b-pi

http://nysi.org.uk/kids_stuff/rocket...eroded_310.png

Consider the following;

The main body is 11 meter in diameter, and 66 meters long. Three tail fins 120 degrees apart that are 27.5 meters from the centre line of the main ship and 55 meters tall joining the ship 27.5 meters from the base of the centre body. Midway along each fin are two pusher plates, each 5.5 meters in diameter, suspended 11 meters above the ground. Six altogether provide 6,000 tonnes of thrust. This ship itself masses 360 tonnes empty, and carries 2,640 tonnes of propellant and payload.

This ship can navigate to any planet moon asteroid dwarf in the solar system and return to Earth in a matter of hours, days, weeks or months.

Such a ship could be built by any of the ship yards now constructing sea going ships.

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

Built as a patrol ship, a pleasure yacht, a cargo carrier, determines the details on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_%28yacht%29

With 14 passengers and 37 crew members, along with 5 tenders using smaller versions of the engines just described...

could be built for about $3 billion in five years.

The buyer would place $3 billion in escrow, and financing for the project arranged. The ship would be leased for 8% of the build amount.

Produced at the same time are nuclear fusion power plants. These plants are sold by a sister company, and the buyer group (which starts with as little as one ship) splits 35% of the revenue (off the top before expenses) from the sale of power from the power plants using the same technology.

In the end, buying a ship will actually generate revenue for the buyers.

The company retains exclusive operational control of all ships, while buyers obtain tax advantages associated with ownership in a manner similar to the way jet services are purchased today.

Fractional ownership is welcomed as well, with a minimum of $1 billion paid into the development fund (3 owners per ship).


Year Fund Balance $/month
(millions) (millions)

1 $ 142.86 $ 1.58
2 $ 428.57 $ 4.78
3 $1,000.00 $11.47
4 $2,142.86 $25.73
5 $3,000.00 $35.92

So, the commitment for each ship is $3 billion. $142.86 million the first year, with a draw down against the fund of $1.58 million per month. This rises to $428.57 million fund balance - and a draw down by the project company of $4.78 million per month. Year three the fund rises to $1 billion per ship, and the draw down to $11.47 million per month - and so on. When the ship is operational, there is a $40 million per month fee for a period of 7 years - and any extraordinary operating expenses which are expected to be less than $20 million per month.

This ship will take a crew of 37 plus 14 passengers, to any point in the solar system at 1/3 gee after blasting off at 2 gees. The moon may be reached in less than 20 hours while carrying 400 tonnes.

The programme includes the purchase of a lithium/deuteride mine in South America - which provides fuel for the ships. (including tender ships).

2 HZ to 35 Hz - this is less than 1/3 gee to 4 gee using the pulse unit sizing described previously...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdQbQa-rIbw


Changing the size of the pulse units changes thrust as well for a given pulse rate.


F = mdot * Ve = mass flow * exhaust velocity = Newtons.

mass flow = 62/1000 kg * pulse rate
exhaust velocity = 9.37 million m/sec


kg = Newtons/9.80655

tonnes = kg/1000

http://www.luerssen-yachts.com/#en/design/concepts

With an 18.3 meter (60 ft) diameter airframe at its widest and 119 meters (390 ft) long, massing 720 tonnes empty, and carrying 2,280 tonnes of payload and propellant, capable of pulling 6,000 tonnes thrust, the ship has 37 crew and 14 passengers.

Two spiral escalators one upward moving another downward moving wraps around the ship like a DNA molecule. These provide easy movement between the 42 decks and any part of the 3,990 sq meter (42,900 sq ft) of deck area! 18.3 meters at its widest, and averaging 5.5 meters diameter.

Access tubes into the fins provide engineering access to each of the six engine pods and landing gear. An enclosed stairwell in each fin, fitted above the engineering access hall, provides access from deck 25 to the surface in three directions! Reversible escalators here are illuminated with skylights and are pressurized with an airlock at the base of each fin. Access is restricted during engine operation.

Clamshell doors at the base of the central airframe with an overhead hoist permits heavy loading and unloading. An elevator runs the length of the main ship body for easy movement of cargo throughout the ship.

Each deck may be sealed gas tight and isolated from the others as required.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+to+mars

Mars today (15 Sept 2014) is 217.1 million km away. Travelling there at 1/3 gee requires 143.17 hours achieving a top speed of 842.4 km/sec. Six days out, and six days back.

Total delta vee required is 3,370 km/sec. This requires a propellant fraction of 30.2% which requires 906.3 tonnes of Lithium-6 Deuteride pellets, with a 3,000 tonne take off weight. This is 14.62 million wafers of 62 grams each.

Biosuit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRwnWMYpAi8

18.3 meter diameter by 119 meter long ovoid. The docking area contains five tenders - each 11 meters long and 6.7 meters in diameter surrounding a central tube 3.4 meters in diameter.

Level Station Radius Area Diameter
meters meters m2 meters

0 59.5 0.000
1 56.7 2.774 24.173 5.548 - astro lounge (sky deck)
2 53.9 3.875 47.180 7.751 - command deck
3 51.1 4.687 69.023 9.375 - command support deck
4 48.3 5.343 89.701 10.687 - captain's quarters
5 45.5 5.896 109.213 11.792 - officer's quarters
6 42.7 6.372 127.561 12.744 - owner dining area
7 39.9 6.788 144.744 13.575 - owner's suite
8 37.1 7.153 160.762 14.307 - owner's suite
9 34.3 7.477 175.615 14.953 - guest cabin 1 & 2
10 31.5 7.763 189.303 15.525 - guest cabin 3 & 4
11 28.7 8.015 201.826 16.030 - guest cabin 5 & 6
12 25.9 8.238 213.184 16.475 - media lounge - dining
13 23.1 8.432 223.378 16.865 - exercise room
14 20.3 8.601 232.406 17.202 - life support
15 17.5 8.745 240.269 17.491 - crew's quarters
16 14.7 8.866 246.968 17.733 - crew's lounge

17 11.9 8.965 252.501 17.930 - docking area - level 1
18 9.1 9.042 256.870 18.085 - docking area - level 2
19 6.3 9.099 260.073 18.197 - docking area - level 3
20 3.5 9.134 262.112 18.268 - docking area - level 4

21 0.7 9.149 262.986 18.299 - main dining/meeting area

22 -2.1 9.144 262.694 18.289 - storage
23 -4.9 9.119 261.238 18.238 - storage
24 -7.7 9.073 258.617 18.146 - storage - spacesuit/airlock
25 -10.5 9.006 254.831 18.013 - engineering 1 - fin access
26 -13.3 8.918 249.880 17.837 - engineering 2 - propulsion
27 -16.1 8.809 243.764 17.617 - life support
28 -18.9 8.676 236.483 17.352 - crew's quarters
29 -21.7 8.520 228.037 17.040 - crew's lounge
30 -24.5 8.338 218.427 16.677 - Propellant 1
31 -27.3 8.130 207.651 16.260 - Propellant 2
32 -30.1 7.893 195.710 15.786 - Propellant 3
33 -32.9 7.624 182.605 15.248 - Propellant 4
34 -35.7 7.320 168.334 14.640 - Propellant 5
35 -38.5 6.976 152.899 13.953 - Propellant 6
36 -41.3 6.587 136.298 13.173 - Propellant 7
37 -44.1 6.142 118.533 12.285 - Propellant 8
38 -46.9 5.631 99.603 11.261 - Generator/Communications
39 -49.7 5.031 79.507 10.061 - Supplies storage
40 -52.5 4.306 58.247 8.612 - Equipment storage
41 -55.3 3.377 35.822 6.754 - Hoist
42 -58.1 1.973 12.232 3.946 - Access doors

7451.258 Total Deck Area (sq m)

Profile of 3,000 tonne ship with 42 levels

http://www.scribd.com/doc/239783034/...r-Pulse-Rocket

With four fins (instead of three) and each fin containing two thrusters, a total of 8,000 tonnes of thrust is possible.

On Monday, September 15, 2014 3:37:46 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Profile of 3,000 tonne ship with 42 levels



http://www.scribd.com/doc/239783034/...r-Pulse-Rocket



With four fins (instead of three) and each fin containing two thrusters, a total of 8,000 tonnes of thrust is possible.


Doesn't seem as though it would be a very smooth ride for the astronauts.

Double-A

On Monday, September 15, 2014 3:30:18 PM UTC-4, Double-A wrote:
On Monday, September 15, 2014 3:37:46 AM UTC-7, wrote:

Profile of 3,000 tonne ship with 42 levels







http://www.scribd.com/doc/239783034/...r-Pulse-Rocket







With four fins (instead of three) and each fin containing two thrusters, a total of 8,000 tonnes of thrust is possible.





Doesn't seem as though it would be a very smooth ride for the astronauts.



Double-A

Shock absorbers attached to the thrust plates make the ride as smooth as you like. Absorbers are critical to making the thrust system controllable. An electromagnetic shock absorber makes an efficient system that is capable of handling a broad spectrum of driving forces. It also produces electrical power for the ship during thrust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fWfFiKBxSc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ1eKddstxM


Redesigning the ship as a cruise ship, rather than a personal yacht, we have a dozen floors out of the 42 with 8 cabins on each deck. The cabins range in size from 15.4 sq meters to 20.8 sq meters. The eight cabins are arrayed radially around a central space where two escalators are intertwined between decks in the centre and an elevator runs between them.

The largest ship deck is 18.3 meters in diameter and the depth of the cabins is 3.6 meters creating a wedge shaped room whose outer wall is 7.18 meters long and interior wall is 4.35 meters long. The central area 11.1 meters wide and houses an upward directed spiral escalator and a downward directed spiral escalator around a central tube like elevator.

A dozen cabin decks with 8 cabins per deck comprise 96 cabins with 192 passengers typical.

Converting 24 of the 42 decks to cabins of this type doubles this count 192 cabins and 384 passengers typical.

These obviously aren't the only layouts possible with this airframe.


Dividing the propulsive wafers into 1/4 thickness, permits further refinement in thrust - allowing a reuse of a narrow ranges of frequencies - which makes your shock absorber more useful.

Active suspension smooths ride and improves control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df2mM5jP1W0

Basic performance equations
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0803.3636.pdf
http://tc.engr.wisc.edu/files/2012/1...icAnderson.pdf

Two passenger vehicle specifications;
http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicl...nt=model-specs

This forms a tri-axial ellipsoid if these general dimensions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipso..._Ellipsoid.jpg

With an interior roughly the same as in the vehicle shown - excepting a more streamlined control system - no control panel, gesture recognition and heads up display - equipped to accept a space suited traveller.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...dcage_75th.JPG

4.7 meters length, 1.4 meters tall, 2.0 meters wide massing 1864 kg. With a 650 kg inert weight, 850 kg propellant weight, 364 kg payload is possible..


Propellant fraction;

u = 850/1864 = 0.456 = 45.6%

Final velocity;

Vf = Ve*ln(1/(1-u)) = 9,730 km/sec * LN(1/(1-0.456)) = 5,923.6 km/sec.

At different accelerations, boost times are;

5,923,600 / 9.80655 = 604,053 seconds -- 7 days

At 1/4 gee boost times of 28 days are possible.

This gives a one-way range of 447.3 million km to 1,789.1 million km under constant boost.

Capable of travelling throughout the solar system.

1864 kg take off weight and 2 gee take off acceleration, implies a thrust of 36,558.8 Newtons. With an exhaust speed of 9,730 km/sec this means at full thrust the vehicle has a mass flow rate of 3.75 grams/second. Divided across four half meter diameter disks attached to shock absorbers form four support centres providing the main lift for the vehicle. This is well worked out for quad-rotors and the math there is easily adapted for this flight control system

http://cdcl.umd.edu/papers/cdc13.pdf

So, each disk produces a thrust of 10,000 Newtons at 109.4% rated thrust. At this thrust 1.0257 grams per second. At 100 blasts per second this is 10.257 milligrams per wafer. Dividing again by four to permit start-up, shut-down, and low thrust operation, each wafer is 2,564.25 micrograms. Each is detonated 500 mm from the 500 mm diameter plate and produces 1/4 of the lift for the vehicle. The plates sit in what would be the wheel wells for a ground vehicle. Unlike wheels, the disks are parallel to the ground, though each can be gimballed in any direction by use of a hexapod type support system that doubles as a shock absorber energy extraction system;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTUgUw-_JvE

The pusher plates extend from the vehicle 0.8 meters above ground level, and detonation points occur 0.3 meters above ground level. It does muss the hair of those nearby if care is not taken during lift off.

The wafers are encased by a MEMS based array of solid propellant rockets that position each wafer prior to detonation - under closed loop wireless control from the vehicle and may be fired at rates of up to 200 per second. (12,000 rounds per minute) for each engine pod.) Since the rounds are self-powered, and magnetically launched, this is easily achieved with proven existing technology, with appropriate stacking of the wafers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEu9LLQpOF8

(NOTE: these may also be used offensively or defensively - but range is limited since the neutron flux of the detonator falls off with distance - and not too often since the neutron beam relies on recovery of a portion of the thrust energy to maintain its power)

At two gees it takes 2 hours 27 minutes and 34.2 seconds to fly from Earth to moon.

At one gee it takes 3 hours 28 minutes 41.7 seconds to fly from Earth to moon.

These are the tenders for the vehicle described earlier.

With 384 passengers, 37 technical crew and 23 concierge personnel, along with two week flight cycles between destinations throughout the inner solar system and Earth, we can estimate the number of ships like this that are needed to sustain removal of 310 million people per year from Earth.

Approximately 31,000 vehicles of this type are required. The ten largest airlines operate 5,571 aircraft. The top 100 airlines operate 12,354 aircraft.

http://www.airlines-inform.com/ranki...ffic_2011.html

Spending 12 hours 'in dock' every two weeks, mean 1,107 landing apron/launch pads are operated around the world.


https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...elds/2053.html

There are 43,830 airfields operated around the world. With one or two landing aprons per international airfield, we can accomodate 1,107 launch pads for the larger ships. Tenders (six per larger ship) can land and take off VTOL from any airfield, or unprepared space.

110 ground personnel are required for a full service pad.

31,000 ships x (37 technical crew + 23 concierge) + 1107 x 110 = 1,981,770 persons work in this field. Another 121,770 personnel work off world in 1,107 off-world launch centres operated throughout the solar system.

186,000 tender ships are in operation, and another 1,000,000 in local service throughout the solar system. These are generally used for planetary travel.

Boeing's main plant produces 47 airliners per month, and are capable of producing 180 per month if pushed.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/boeing...emand-cm228184

To produce 31,000 over a 7 year period requires double this rate of construction. With a 20 year useful life we have the following;

Year Earth Transfer Off World

2014 7120.0 44.3 44.3
2015 7156.9 88.6 133.1
2016 7149.9 132.9 266.7
2017 7098.6 177.1 445.4
2018 7002.3 221.4 669.4
2019 6860.7 265.7 939.0

2020 6673.2 310.0 1254.5
2021 6439.3 354.3 1616.1
2022 6158.4 398.6 2024.0
2023 5830.1 442.9 2478.6
2024 5453.7 487.1 2980.1
2025 5028.7 531.4 3528.8
2026 4554.6 575.7 4125.0
2027 4030.8 620.0 4768.9
2028 3456.8 664.3 5460.9
2029 2831.9 708.6 6201.1

2030 2155.6 752.9 6989.9
2031 1427.3 797.1 7827.6
2032 646.4 16.3 7889.3
2033 637.5 7.4 7942.4
2034 637.4 7.3 7995.8
2035 637.4 7.3 8049.4
2036 637.4 7.3 8103.4
2037 637.4 7.3 8157.6
2038 637.4 7.3 8212.2
2039 637.4 7.3 8267.1

2040 637.4 7.3 8322.3

We have collapse in the emmigration off world as population levels fall below 1 billion in 2032. After that emmigration is balanced against population growth and immigration, to maintain 637.4 millions on Earth. The number off world rises until interstellar commerce is developed. Population rises at 0.58% per year off world for a variety of factors whilst population rises at 1.14% per year on Earth. Off world population exceeds Earth's population in 2026AD and off world population exceeds today's population in 2030AD as population on Earth falls below 2 billions.

Space travel as a depopulation scheme using these ships halts as immigration from off world is relaxed for those in space.