h a l f b a k e r yExtruded? Are you sure?
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
A bit out of range of the nearest star when you hit a dark matter sandbar ? no worries: reform the solar sail into a parabolic shape, fire up the gigawatt nuclear reactor and suspend a heating element at the focal point. Black-body radiation now powers your craft.
Photon Drive
http://spectech.bra..._PHOTON%20DRIVE.htm [MisterQED, Mar 23 2011]
[link]
|
|
Imagine a boat with a sail and a jar of compressed air
mounted and pointing at the sail. That's what you
have here. Turn it around so your air is venting
backwards and you're much more efficient. |
|
|
Well, yes but in this case the solar sail is the jar. You just want a smaller jar (parabola). |
|
|
"Attention...the solar sail is a jar. Attention...the solar sail
is a jar. Attention..." |
|
|
// Turn it around so your air is venting backwards // |
|
|
He's already venting hot gases rearwards, but then he always
talks that way ... |
|
|
The solar sail turns the isotropic radiation from the heater into quasi-unidirectional radiation. Don't think it even begins to resemble an orion drive, but the concept is valid. |
|
|
Slow Burn Orion Drive = Photon Drive |
|
|
Sorry, already thought of 76 years ago (link) |
|
|
I think this qualifies as a seperate idea from the photon drive. The one in the link is powered by antimatter, and the reaction would take place inside a giant, magical x-ray reflecting engine bell. |
|
|
A mylar sail being accelerated by radiation from a nuclear reactor over thousands of years is a bit differnt. |
|
|
Although personally I would rather ride on the antimatter ship. |
|
|
mmmmmm, slow-burnt onions... |
|
|
mmmmm [hippo] I read the same thing....and smelled them, too!! |
|
|
I have been reading about the Pioneer anomaly. I
understand it turned out the probe was pushed slower by
its own heat. So this scheme proposed by FT would work.
I do not understand why this is not a " reactionless drive" -
we are not spurting propellant behind the craft. |
|
|
Yes you are. Photons have momentum. |
|
|
Things like this reveal to me the yawning abysses of ingnorance that exist in my head. A few clicks later and I realized that I must read on "relativistic mass" to understand how a particle without Newtonian mass can have momentum. |
|
| |