Fastest Possible Interstellar Ship Construction and Launch

[Artlav]

Why bother sending anyone somewhere in space? Make use of that black hole and send a ship back in time. That way you'll be in a position to actually do something.:idea:

Actually, that gives me an idea.
Can't remember the name of this manoeuvre, but burning deep in a gravity well can give you a huge increase in speed at infinity.

So, swing the ship as close as possible to the black hole, and do the burn there.
That way you'll get the 1-10% c on departure for free, meaning much smaller mass ratio requirements, and thus more plausible-to-build ship.

 

[Urwumpe]

why 10 years at all? a black hole can't be accelerated to even a high percentage of the speed of light, unless you use magic. a black hole can accelerate matter to high speeds, but this matter leaves the maelstrom as simple atoms and ions at most. The next black hole large enough to accelerate a black hole to higher speeds is 25000 light years away and this black hole doesn't move measureable distances relative to the center of mass of our galaxy, because it is essentially the center of mass. So, no gravity assist.

Even if this black hole would then be travelling at 99% c and stay intact, we would have centuries to detect its effects on other stars or dust clouds between us and the center of the galaxy before it reaches us.

So, the scenario itself is already pretty unrealistic. There would be far more realistic dangers to us... what if a Wolf-Rayet star in our neighbourhood goes Supernova? There are some candidates, that are literally aiming their guns at us. While it will very likely not cause instant death to all, because the atmosphere would ionize and form a shield before radiation would be fatal for us, it could cause massive climate changes.

We can't even predict the collapse of such a star currently, because we don't know enough about the collapse of stars. It would be surprising - when we see the supernova, the radiation has also reached us.

So... the reality of the question is: If we don't start making space our home now, we will maybe never have even the chance to evade such a lightning from the blue scenario. It could happen every minute and we might be unprepared.

 

[jedidia]

Can't remember the name of this manoeuvre, but burning deep in a gravity well can give you a huge increase in speed at infinity.

The Oberth effect! of course! it should be quite significant close to a black hole. The trick is of course to not get your ship (and your guts) torn apart by the gravity gradient, but this is a kick-ass idea! :lol:

Also, the black hole should be able to pull you along some when it passes, makes for another veocity increase. Of course, the vessel would have to be launched plenty ahead of time to get some distance to the cataclysmic event, on a straight course away from the black hole. Black hole passes sun, rips it apart, passes ship, pulls it along and the ship makes as much use of the oberth effect as it can.

The real trick being, how do you savely utilise a back hole that just tore a star apart? But it would make for a nice short novel, or the dramatic beginning of a really long one. It would certainly need a more realistic timeframe than ten years from detection to launch, and should be set in a time when sufficiently advanced spaceflight technology is available to even make it an option.

 

[Keatah]

Along time ago in a similar discussion, someone suggested using modified commercial airliners.

 

[APDAF]

I think that the black hole idea should be dumped and a more likely world ending event should be our focus on.

 

[Spacethingy]

Sorry for not being serious, but here's my method:

Anyone know what this is from...? :lol:

 

[APDAF]

Look something our of Dr Who but I am not sure. :hmm:

 

[MattBaker]

Doctor, Who is this? (why punctuation is important)

 

[Ghostrider]

Look something our of Dr Who but I am not sure. :hmm:

It is. "The Beast Below", second adventure for the 11th Doctor.

 

[Admiral_Ritt]

I don't see how you would survive on the earth.
tidal disruption and heating would destroy any shelters no matter how
deep, as well as any infrastructure that was uselful post apocalipse
If tossed out of the solar system and had no external heat source, all earth's atmosphere would freeze over in a decade.
Way before then, temperatures would hover around -2C near the oceans, inland well you would get dark winter arctic
conditions -50C. Once the all of the Oceans retain a permanent ice cover the atmosphere would rapidly "snow out" this all asumes
the HOLE doesn't swallow it.

I grant a couple thousand might survive for a few decades.
But I would take my chances on the ARK. I have skills but I would
be too old to go.

The cruise ships would have to be modified but it would not be a big
deal to make it take positive pressure. the only heavy alteration is
is to remove the supestructure and engines, and seal up the hull
from the top. And you only need to pressurize the bow and stern section
as the ship refugees would have to live in those sections because
The ships would have to modified this way so they can be spun up on the
pusher plate, to create artificial gravity. Inert supplies and cargo can go in the middle
of boat, with less atmopheric pressure, 100mb?, so it can
be sealed from the outside with a simple sleeve. I believe there are some
materials that can handle a vacuum. Silicone??

Remember the cruise ships are a temporary abode,
there is no way they would last a couple of thousand years in deep space. You need to make the
Dirty Ice ball your home, drill drill and more drilling.

 

[Gumok]

But now let's talk about the final destination. We will assume that we can map all the near stars and their relative velocity vectors and their real positions on sky because of speed of light precisely enough that we can't miss them. What star would be our choise?
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars"]List of nearest stars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[Admiral_Ritt]

My favorite target would be 83 G Eridanus. a G8V star
with three confimed planets. older than the Sun, much less
stellar debris than Eplison Eridani

it's 20 LY away. Lets assume a 4,000 year trip.

Your speed would need to be... 0.5% of C. or
a little over 1500 Km/sec

This is why we can't build a ship and store supplies for such a trip.
even with 30 years start no way to do it that way.
For a 4,000 year journey you must use the dirty ice ball as a base resource and living space and ship.
Obcourse Nuclear tech would be the most important tech, since you would have to build mininuke bombs again
to slow down/maneuver, after the 4,000 year journey

 

[jedidia]

I don't see how you would survive on the earth.

I don't see how you would survive milenia on a makeshift spacecraft bolted together in a ridiculous timeframe using untested technology. Let alone the social problems you are going to have along the way (your spacecraft better be built to withstand internal armed conflict. There is no known example in all of history of a human group of several thousand coexisting peacefully for that long...).

The earth has at least proven itself to be able to take quite a whacking, from us and from space.

 

[palebluevoice]

What about doing a slingshot around the black hole? Not going to get into the spacecraft debate, but if you were to launch something, couldn't you do a slingshot?

 

[garyw]

My favorite target would be 83 G Eridanus. a G8V star
with three confimed planets. older than the Sun, much less
stellar debris than Eplison Eridani

it's 20 LY away. Lets assume a 4,000 year trip.

Your speed would need to be... 0.5% of C. or
a little over 1500 Km/sec

And how do you accelerate a 'dirty ice ball' to 0.5c? Even places like the Tau foundation talk about just 0.1 to 0.2c which is out of reach even today. They are talking about a 100 year plan to build such an interstellar probe.

Also, just because it has three planets doesn't mean any of them will be suitable. Why not look for something that humans can live on? Such as the Earth? nothing wrong with taking a trip around the solar system then coming back when it's all quietened down.

This is why we can't build a ship and store supplies for such a trip.
even with 30 years start no way to do it that way.

Surely even your dirty ice ball needs supplies?

For a 4,000 year journey you must use the dirty ice ball as a base resource and living space and ship.

Must? why must?

Obcourse Nuclear tech would be the most important tech, since you would have to build mininuke bombs again
to slow down/maneuver, after the 4,000 year journey

why? Why not use a solar sail? why not use a series of slingshots to decelerate - dumping your excess energy into the planet/star instead of taking it as in a normal slingshot.

 

[Admiral_Ritt]

GaryW DONT MISQUOTE....

I said 1/2 of ONE PERCENT of speed of light .005 X C. Not 1/2 C.

If you chuck out enough minibombs at the back of the dirty ice ball,
you can get considerable speed over a pusher plate. Admittedly
it would take a large percentage of current available fissile material
and assembly lines to make enough of them would have to be set up. but
it would work.


4,000 yr Flight is a guide, that's close to what China's civilization has lasted.

 

[Hlynkacg]

GaryW DONT MISQUOTE....

I said 1/2 of ONE PERCENT of speed of light .005 X C. Not 1/2 C.

If you chuck out enough minibombs at the back of the dirty ice ball,
you can get considerable speed over a pusher plate. Admittedly
it would take a large percentage of current available fissile material
and assembly lines to make enough of them would have to be set up. but
it would work.


4,000 yr Flight is a guide, that's close to what China's civilization has lasted.

And you consider China's civilization to be peaceful!?!?!

:uhh:

 

[Urwumpe]

4,000 yr Flight is a guide, that's close to what China's civilization has lasted.

Which civilization in China? The first Chinese Empire was founded 200 BC, not 2000 BC. That is not even older than the "European civilization", if such a thing ever existed.

For example China was completely turned around in the past 2000 years, most notably by Kublai Khan. He literally reshaped the Asian maps.

 

[Hlynkacg]

Which civilization in China? The first Chinese Empire was founded 200 BC, not 2000 BC. That is not even older than the "European civilization", if such a thing ever existed.

For example China was completely turned around in the past 2000 years, most notably by Kublai Khan. He literally reshaped the Asian maps.

And that's discounting things like "The great leap forward" and traditional end-of-dynasty civil wars.

 

[garyw]

GaryW DONT MISQUOTE....

I said 1/2 of ONE PERCENT of speed of light .005 X C. Not 1/2 C.

How am I misquoting? Your previous post said 0.5c - go back and read it.

If you chuck out enough minibombs at the back of the dirty ice ball,
you can get considerable speed over a pusher plate. Admittedly
it would take a large percentage of current available fissile material
and assembly lines to make enough of them would have to be set up. but
it would work.

Show us the math on this.