The Sci. & Tech. Concordance and Discussion Thread

[Daryl Froggy]

You could feel the acceleration the same way you feel it when you're in an escalator. And you could feel it even if you were touching nothing (i.e. you're in deep space) as long as it's strong enough. You'd especially feel it if it was strong enough as you'd get ripped apart (the actual term is spaghettified) because of the force delta between the two most distant places on your body relative to the gravity source center.

Is there a way to remove that pesky physical law?

[Ophiuchus]

Is there a way to remove that pesky physical law?

Nope, that's the law of inertia and the law of acceleration.

It even gets worse at relativistic speed (your inertia gets multiplied by the gamma* factor {in fact the inertia does not get higher but relative time gets dilated, so, for an outside observer, it's the same}).

*gamma=(1-(v^2/c^2))^(-1/2)

But, if you're in the 'gate universe, just grab an inertial dampener!

[Dark Falcon]

Just a cool random picture..!

Where did you get these pics?

[Harekin]

There is no instintaneous(sp?) travel in SG. Even the SG takes like 0.4 of a second to transport people.

[Daryl Froggy]

Ok so the only reason that we can't go faster(besides the supposed light speed limit) is because the front of our ship's hull wouldn't be going as fast as the back and would 'want' to stay where it was.

the only answer I can come up with is that we need to figure out how to accelerate the entire ship at the same rate instead of trying to make more powerful engines that squirt plasma out the back.

[Ophiuchus]

Ok so the only reason that we can't go faster(besides the supposed light speed limit) is because the front of our ship's hull wouldn't be going as fast as the back and would 'want' to stay where it was.

the only answer I can come up with is that we need to figure out how to accelerate the entire ship at the same rate instead of trying to make more powerful engines that squirt plasma out the back.

That's not it. As long as the incident force (i.e. the propulsion) is within the structural capabilities of the ship, it's fine. You just have to tranfer the energy through the structure of the ship to all of its parts from the propeller so they go at the same speed. The problem arises when you're trying to accelerate too fast (thus requiring more force) and go above your structure's capability. When you do this, your ship disintegrates (or blows up, pretty much the same thing). You simply need a stronger structure to permit a higher acceleration. But a stronger structure usually means more mass, and more mass to accelerate means a higher force and thus bigger propellers and more fuel/energy.

[Seastallion]

Where did you get these pics?

From the net. I don't remember specifically where. You could probably get it from Google or Yahoo, in a search for images under the heading of "Stargate". As to the question asked earlier... Inertia is independent of gravity, so you'd feel acceleration with or without gravity, unless there was an equal force acting against it, thus negating the effect. Which is what inertial dampeners are for.

[Daryl Froggy]

That's not it. As long as the incident force (i.e. the propulsion) is within the structural capabilities of the ship, it's fine. You just have to tranfer the energy through the structure of the ship to all of its parts from the propeller so they go at the same speed. The problem arises when you're trying to accelerate too fast (thus requiring more force) and go above your structure's capability. When you do this, your ship disintegrates (or blows up, pretty much the same thing). You simply need a stronger structure to permit a higher acceleration. But a stronger structure usually means more mass, and more mass to accelerate means a higher force and thus bigger propellers and more fuel/energy.

Ok so the greatest limiting factor to manned space flight according to you is our lack of sufficiantly strong and light materials?

[Seastallion]

If we're talking actual problems of space flight in real life, the biggest impediment is radiation. Although, there are possibilities of how to deal with that. One idea is to fill the hull of the ship with water, to act as a barrier. Another idea is to create a magnetic shield around the ship to protect it much as the Earth's EM field does.

As to the above... the problem with acceleration in space has more to do with mass, than structural integrity. The more mass your ship has, the more fuel it takes to propel it. Structural integrity is a minor concern in that respect. There is no friction in space, so you don't have to worry about wind sheer like you would with an airplane. There isn't any wall of air to place stress on the ship. On the other hand, you might be concerned about structural integrity if you ran into something, or you got hit by a meteor shower. However, that is very different from acceleration stresses. Currently no engine we have is going to put enough stress on a ship to flatten it into a pancake when it starts pushing the ship, because of inertia.

In truth, the biggest problem (besides radiation) is life support in general. We can spin a ship to simulate gravity, to keep the body from getting too weakened. However, there are issues of maintaining a long term oxygen supply, waste recycling, and pretty much all the little things that make it difficult for us to travel in space. All that besides the fact that most places we want to go are so far away, it would take much too long to get there, in most cases to even attempt it. Now if those guys could just get that Heim-theory hyperdrive thing to work... *sigh* I could only dream...

[Daryl Froggy]

Well now that I have most of the hinderances to space travel down I'd like to propose an idea I had about said space travel. It was inspired by those movies where they had micro-meteoroids crash through their ship causing a great deal of damage to their ships hull and forcing them to get into space suits quickly to save their lives.

The idea is for a substance, I call it 'goo,' that is in a layer of the hull. When a hole is made in the hull the 'goo' rushes in and hardens within seconds of the initial break, like blood scabbing to prevent further blood loss, this will give the crew ample time to find the damaged area and fix it without the threat of impending asphyxiation.

So do you guys think that this would help out in the real world at all?

[Seastallion]

Well now that I have most of the hinderances to space travel down I'd like to propose an idea I had about said space travel. It was inspired by those movies where they had micro-meteoroids crash through their ship causing a great deal of damage to their ships hull and forcing them to get into space suits quickly to save their lives.

The idea is for a substance, I call it 'goo,' that is in a layer of the hull. When a hole is made in the hull the 'goo' rushes in and hardens within seconds of the initial break, like blood scabbing to prevent further blood loss, this will give the crew ample time to find the damaged area and fix it without the threat of impending asphyxiation.

So do you guys think that this would help out in the real world at all?

I've no doubt that it would help. I'd be very suprised if some egg-head in NASA hadn't already thought of it though.

[Ophiuchus]

Ok so the greatest limiting factor to manned space flight according to you is our lack of sufficiantly strong and light materials?

Nope, because the human body already cannot sustain the same acceleration as eny of the current materials (aluminum, steel, titanium, composites, ...).

The one most limiting factor is protection. Protection from micrometeorites and radiation is almost impossible to achieve outside the Earth's magnetosphere with current materials.

[Seastallion]

Nope, because the human body already cannot sustain the same acceleration as eny of the current materials (aluminum, steel, titanium, composites, ...).

The one most limiting factor is protection. Protection from micrometeorites and radiation is almost impossible to achieve outside the Earth's magnetosphere with current materials.

Not impossible, but certainly not easy. Partly because of the extreme costs of transporting heavy materials into orbit. If that cost could be reduced drastically, then it is feasible that we could build great ships that could withstand such dangers. As it is, we're flying small motorboats in space, as opposed to an Aircraft Carrier. Huge difference there. Problem is, it would cost a staggering amount to try and build a huge ship in space with current costs. That is one of the reasons I'm such a big proponent of building space elevators. If we could do that, it would go a long way towards accelerating our ability to explore space, at far less costs.

[Ophiuchus]

Not impossible, but certainly not easy. Partly because of the extreme costs of transporting heavy materials into orbit. If that cost could be reduced drastically, then it is feasible that we could build great ships that could withstand such dangers. As it is, we're flying small motorboats in space, as opposed to an Aircraft Carrier. Huge difference there. Problem is, it would cost a staggering amount to try and build a huge ship in space with current costs. That is one of the reasons I'm such a big proponent of building space elevators. If we could do that, it would go a long way towards accelerating our ability to explore space, at far less costs.

Except that the current price tag for such an elevator would be ginormous. To build an elevator, the exit must be in geosynchronous orbit. That's 35 786 km away. The lenght or the thether or ribbon used will generate costs in the many hundred billion $. And that's only if we had a reasonably strong material that could sustain the Ionosphere and the two Van Allen radiation belts. Such a material does not exist as of yet. Then, you must take it in space to GSO and drop it back to Earth. The cost of taking the stuff up there would be in the billions as well.

The one way to get space travel cheaper is a rather portable fusion reactor, either with an open ending or powering a plasma engine. That way, you only need a small vessel to take crew and hydrogen up there and the permanently deep space ship does the rest. Heck, cheap electricity from fusion would lower the cost of chemical space travel as well (less cost to electrolyse water).

[Seastallion]

Except that the current price tag for such an elevator would be ginormous. To build an elevator, the exit must be in geosynchronous orbit. That's 35 786 km away. The lenght or the thether or ribbon used will generate costs in the many hundred billion $. And that's only if we had a reasonably strong material that could sustain the Ionosphere and the two Van Allen radiation belts. Such a material does not exist as of yet. Then, you must take it in space to GSO and drop it back to Earth. The cost of taking the stuff up there would be in the billions as well.

The one way to get space travel cheaper is a rather portable fusion reactor, either with an open ending or powering a plasma engine. That way, you only need a small vessel to take crew and hydrogen up there and the permanently deep space ship does the rest. Heck, cheap electricity from fusion would lower the cost of chemical space travel as well (less cost to electrolyse water).

Actually, there is a material that exists, but we have yet to fully learn how to utilize it properly to make it useable. Carbon Nanotubes meet the qualifications, but scientist still have to figure out how to utilize it on large scalar projects such as a space elevator. Pop. Sci. had a great article about it a while back. It could be done, and more than one elevator could be built which would drastically decrease costs. At the moment it cost about $100,000 per astronaut to send up to space. zouch..!