Oh, there are much better things ! Who doesnt love their smell of perchloryl fluoride in the morning ?
To be just a bit blunt about it, the reason there is so much discussion about the non-existent (as of now) technologies mentioned by the OP is that people (myself included) desperately want the science fiction futures we've been reading about our whole lives to become realities right now.
Quote from: savuporo on 06/03/2014 06:48 amOh, there are much better things ! Who doesnt love their smell of perchloryl fluoride in the morning ? Anyone who's survived a spill of the stuff?
The paper goes on to react FOOF with everything else you wouldn't react it with: ammonia ("vigorous", this at 100K), water ice (explosion, natch), chlorine ("violent explosion", so he added it more slowly the second time), red phosphorus (not good), bromine fluoride, chlorine trifluoride (say what?), perchloryl fluoride (!), tetrafluorohydrazine (how on Earth. . .), and on, and on. If the paper weren't laid out in complete grammatical sentences and published in JACS, you'd swear it was the work of a violent lunatic. I ran out of vulgar expletives after the second page. A. G. Streng, folks, absolutely takes the corrosive exploding cake, and I have to tip my asbestos-lined titanium hat to him.
Not sure if A. G. Streng is still around, low odds i think
it is more powerful even that elemental fluorine due to the reduced bond F-F to Kr-F with redox potencial of 3.5, making it the most powerful known oxidising agent, though KrF4 could be even stronger.
The reasons for not doing so have mostly to do with the political systems of the world not being in support of that idea or effort, and the populations of the world are far too ensconced in daily survival to contemplate any larger human destiny than seeing another sunrise. In my view, an off-planet society, economy, and frontier on Luna and Mars would be sufficient for the foreseeable future. There would probably be a good development path on SEP and similar propulsion systems, once a regular cycling paradigm could be established.
I typically look askance at all the antimatter and other exotic proposals. But that's just me.
I made an attempt to collect at least the top five reasons that most of the so-called advanced propulsion ideas are not viable, but my choice of topic title was insufficiently non-judgemental:
my personal view is that in the far,far, far future flying around in spaceships will be redundant. It seems to me the only way of crossing vast tracts of spacetime is not to try and fly through it as it takes too long and too much effort. Rather we know spacetime can be bent and shaped. One day if we could control the bending of spacetime then I envisage that travelling anywhere in the universe would be the same as stepping through a door. How I imagine this would be like to use would be to step up to a door of a room/machine. On the other side, the destination you want to go too (anything from the most distant galaxy in the universe to the local shop down the road, would have spacetime bent to such an extent that your destination is now positioned on the other side of the door. you open the door (the door opens for you) you step across and are standing at you destination. the whole of the space time instantaneously unbends and returns to the its original position with you standing on it. maybe not even a room just an wearable device that bends you destination to appear before you; either way vast travel would be done in one step.no need to fly around in metal tubs, the only problem is we would all get exceedingly fat as we'd not have to actually walk anywhere any more
It is not political support it is cost!! Only three countries can put people in space.And I don't see that changing any time soon!! If may be lucky one or two more countries in next 20 years from now.
Europe does not have money and can hardly run welfare state.
Poverty is still major problem even in rich countries and health care is not what doctors will like to have it.Money money money is big problem and government does not have cash for billion dollars mars exploration that alone trillion dollar for mars colony that would have to be support like the Antarctica to planet terraforming is in place that would take a very long time and cost trillions , trillions , trillions , trillion of dollars.
chemical propulsion is not going to get us to other star system ever. Even Ion or plasma does not even get close.
Well fission or fusion will get you close to the speed of light and anti-matter almost at the speed of light.
No exotic propulsion system will get you faster than speed of light that is impossible by the laws of physics.With out warp drive even with anti-matter you will never travel less than 1% in the milky way even in generation ship. The milky way just too big.
I have not seen threads but we have to talk reality not fantasy.You can't say forget Ion , plasma , fission or fusion it will not get us use less than 1% in the milky way even in generation ship that talk warp drive.
We do not even know if warp drive or some thing like a warp drive is even possible or even clue how to build it.
Quote from: JasonAW3 on 05/27/2014 08:33 pmOk,Simple answers.Chemical rockets have an upper limit as to how fast they can go with a given amount of fuel.Ion Rockets can go really fastwith very little fuel but don't put out a lot of thrust initially and take a LONG time to get up to speed. (Not powerful enough to lift of the planet.)The idea behind Fission and Fusion rockets is to get the fuel REALLY hot so it expands faster than the fuel from a chemical rocket would. The advantage here is that you can get a lot of thrust for a much smaller amount of fel than it would take for a chemical rocket, (Good for boosting to orbit), and once in space, it could give a big initial push and be throttled back for a continious thrust, similar to the Ion engine.Problem is, Fission engines require a nuclear reactor which will involve radioactive materials. An accident could contaminate a large area. And we haven't quite figured out Fusion Rockets or reactors yet, but there's been some very promising developments on this over the last year or so.Anti-matter could take a mass of anti-matter about the size of a quarter and slowly combine it with an equal amount of matter and produce enough thrust to go ANYWHERE in the solar system in a few weeks, under a continious thrust. Problem here, we still don't know how to make large quantities of anti-matter and haven't quite licked the problem of containing the antimatter for storage, let alone trickle it out as a fuel source.Hope this tells you what you wanted to know.JasonAW3 your reply answers other propulsion systems. I'm still interested why Chemical rockets have an upper limit? Is it higher energy density or it the chemical that they use determine if it is dangerous and hazardous?If it is the chemicals? If it is the chemicals there still may be a fuel source they have not found or have to make that it is not dangerous and hazardous.If it is higher energy density that will not matter.So no idea where this chemistry imposed on rockets came from if it has nothing to do with energy density that are dangerous and hazardous but the chemical.
Ok,Simple answers.Chemical rockets have an upper limit as to how fast they can go with a given amount of fuel.Ion Rockets can go really fastwith very little fuel but don't put out a lot of thrust initially and take a LONG time to get up to speed. (Not powerful enough to lift of the planet.)The idea behind Fission and Fusion rockets is to get the fuel REALLY hot so it expands faster than the fuel from a chemical rocket would. The advantage here is that you can get a lot of thrust for a much smaller amount of fel than it would take for a chemical rocket, (Good for boosting to orbit), and once in space, it could give a big initial push and be throttled back for a continious thrust, similar to the Ion engine.Problem is, Fission engines require a nuclear reactor which will involve radioactive materials. An accident could contaminate a large area. And we haven't quite figured out Fusion Rockets or reactors yet, but there's been some very promising developments on this over the last year or so.Anti-matter could take a mass of anti-matter about the size of a quarter and slowly combine it with an equal amount of matter and produce enough thrust to go ANYWHERE in the solar system in a few weeks, under a continious thrust. Problem here, we still don't know how to make large quantities of anti-matter and haven't quite licked the problem of containing the antimatter for storage, let alone trickle it out as a fuel source.Hope this tells you what you wanted to know.
Quote from: micawber on 06/03/2014 02:05 pmmy personal view is that in the far,far, far future flying around in spaceships will be redundant. It seems to me the only way of crossing vast tracts of spacetime is not to try and fly through it as it takes too long and too much effort. Rather we know spacetime can be bent and shaped. One day if we could control the bending of spacetime then I envisage that travelling anywhere in the universe would be the same as stepping through a door. How I imagine this would be like to use would be to step up to a door of a room/machine. On the other side, the destination you want to go too (anything from the most distant galaxy in the universe to the local shop down the road, would have spacetime bent to such an extent that your destination is now positioned on the other side of the door. you open the door (the door opens for you) you step across and are standing at you destination. the whole of the space time instantaneously unbends and returns to the its original position with you standing on it. maybe not even a room just an wearable device that bends you destination to appear before you; either way vast travel would be done in one step.no need to fly around in metal tubs, the only problem is we would all get exceedingly fat as we'd not have to actually walk anywhere any more Even with warp drive it will take you centuries to to travel from one galaxy to next galaxy.
Quote from: nec207 on 06/03/2014 06:20 pmQuote from: micawber on 06/03/2014 02:05 pmmy personal view is that in the far,far, far future flying around in spaceships will be redundant. It seems to me the only way of crossing vast tracts of spacetime is not to try and fly through it as it takes too long and too much effort. Rather we know spacetime can be bent and shaped. One day if we could control the bending of spacetime then I envisage that travelling anywhere in the universe would be the same as stepping through a door. How I imagine this would be like to use would be to step up to a door of a room/machine. On the other side, the destination you want to go too (anything from the most distant galaxy in the universe to the local shop down the road, would have spacetime bent to such an extent that your destination is now positioned on the other side of the door. you open the door (the door opens for you) you step across and are standing at you destination. the whole of the space time instantaneously unbends and returns to the its original position with you standing on it. maybe not even a room just an wearable device that bends you destination to appear before you; either way vast travel would be done in one step.no need to fly around in metal tubs, the only problem is we would all get exceedingly fat as we'd not have to actually walk anywhere any more Even with warp drive it will take you centuries to to travel from one galaxy to next galaxy.This cant be stated with any certainty. No one knows any of the limits of faster than light travel, or if its even possible.
Quote from: nec207 on 06/03/2014 06:14 pmIt is not political support it is cost!! Only three countries can put people in space.And I don't see that changing any time soon!! If may be lucky one or two more countries in next 20 years from now.If Skylon works that will change quite substantially.
Quote from: nec207 on 06/03/2014 06:14 pmWe do not even know if warp drive or some thing like a warp drive is even possible or even clue how to build it.Not really. We have clues on how to build warp drives. If the clues lead to anything, that's another question.Dr Sony White , if i am not mistaken, believes he can create exotic matter from vacuum or something.