aqi
Consumer
Posts: 29
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Post by aqi on Feb 15, 2014 3:36:49 GMT
Are Alcubierre drives going to be used for sublight travel, or will other methods be used?
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Post by Screwface Romeo on Feb 15, 2014 21:00:37 GMT
Well, use of Alcubierre drive is really only restricted by proximity to things you don't want to get caught in the area being warped. And by the margin of error involved in jumps. So, there is a need for a form of propulsion that doesn't have the potential to destroy everything around it.
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aqi
Consumer
Posts: 29
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Post by aqi on Feb 15, 2014 21:21:37 GMT
How common is antimatter? Is it rare enough to only be used in the reactors powering the warp drive, or is it common enough to be used as reaction mass?
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Post by Screwface Romeo on Feb 15, 2014 21:24:01 GMT
That's not been entirely nailed down yet. Me and Pragmatic have been discussing Dyson swarms tasked with collecting stray antiprotons which get caught in a planet or star's magnetic field, but we're uncertain exactly what the yield would be. I know I considered using it in weapons for a while, but pretty much abandoned that except for planet crackers.
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aqi
Consumer
Posts: 29
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Post by aqi on Feb 15, 2014 22:50:18 GMT
You could probably collect some tens of micrograms per year if you raid Saturn and Jupiter: www.centauri-dreams.org/wp-content/Bickford_Phase_II.pdf . Of course, you're going to need to use some of these if you want to bring the captured antimatter backed within any reasonable time. This may be enough to power first warp drive on a space probe and, if the initial results were encouraging, lead to the development of solar or (preferably) fusion powered factories that could produce up to a gram of antimatter a day: www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=22962As a result, I think you'd see antimatter reactors used solely for powering the warp drive, with fusion power plants providing the rest of the energy. Possibly, though, antimatter catalysed fusion drives might end up being used for most interstellar craft, with maybe fast interplanetary ships using the same and slow ones using LANTR or something similar.
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