'Star Trek' Technology for our 'Moon Colonies'

[gizz72]

Greetings,

Colonizing space is man kind's greatest dream. What better way to do it than getting inspiration from 'Star Trek' and turn it to reality. Our first stop, The Moon. :-)
Story:
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3746493

Enjoy,

Gizz

[bjjones37]

Now that is exciting. :-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

hm, thought the Ion engine was more a thing of Star Wars, than Star Trek, since the latter comes up with warp engines (wich is something entirely different)..
Still, a nice invention these Frenchies came up with, this ion engine can theoretically accellerate objects up to near-lightspeed.

[Cymric]

It still puzzles me to a great extent how people can become so excited when they hear about the ion engine. Yes, it is a smart design. Yes, it is very energy efficient. Yes, it can propel spacecraft to very high velocities. But NO, it cannot provide a high accelaration: it took months for the probe to reach the Moon, and, adding insult to injury, used a gravity-assisted flyby of Earth!

Then there is a different problem: how do you brake a probe equipped with only an ion engine? Right now they used the Moon's own gravitational field to capture the probe. Gravitational fields of sufficient strength are rare :-).

It is a promising technology and deserves lots of further study, yes. But until an ion engine can deliver the same thrust that will propel us to the Moon in 4 days, and have the stamina to keep that same level of thrust up for years, then and only then will I begin to call it 'Star Trek' technology.

[Hammer]

If I recall correctly, StarTrek’s impulse/sub-light drive is actually a fusion reactor device.

[PMC]

Cymric wrote:
Then there is a different problem: how do you brake a probe equipped with only an ion engine? Right now they used the Moon's own gravitational field to capture the probe. Gravitational fields of sufficient strength are rare :-).

Simple, rotate craft by 180 degrees and the thrust will eventually slow the probe down.  Okay it takes time to cancel out the velocities attained, but anyone who's ever played Frontier will understand the physics.  The Ion drive will have a very low thrust to weight ratio, therefore will take longer to accelerate/decellerate.

It is a promising technology and deserves lots of further study, yes. But until an ion engine can deliver the same thrust that will propel us to the Moon in 4 days, and have the stamina to keep that same level of thrust up for years, then and only then will I begin to call it 'Star Trek' technology.

The attraction is that instead of building a 111 metre tall rocket at a cost of billions to propel a few meagre tons to the moon, a smaller rocket would only need to propel the cargo into a stable Earth orbit.  A normal rocket not only has to propel the probe, but an extra stage containing sufficient propellant to enable the proble to attain escape velocity which means more mass for the initial stage to boost into the sky.  Once in orbit the Ion drive would fire up and eventually propel the package to the moon.  A conventional rocket cannot remain burning indefinitely, but an Ion drive can.  

Every single interplanetary probe we've launched has had to rely upon the so called "slingshot" effect to accelerate / decelerate.  We're a long way from having the ability to fly around the solar system at will  a-la Frontier, but there is research into matter / anti-matter propulsion going on which may one day prove a viable proposition.

[Cymric]

PMC wrote:
Simple, rotate craft by 180 degrees and the thrust will eventually slow the probe down.  Okay it takes time to cancel out the velocities attained, but anyone who's ever played Frontier will understand the physics.  The Ion drive will have a very low thrust to weight ratio, therefore will take longer to accelerate/decellerate.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at. If it takes a long time to accelerate, it takes an equally long time to decelerate as well. It would not do for a probe to overshoot its destination, and unlike Frontier, which has that marvellous bug/feature that braking is truly instantaneous when in ... err, what's that mode called, maximum time ignoration (for lack of a better word ;-)), the Real Thing obeys the laws of physics.

Every single interplanetary probe we've launched has had to rely upon the so called "slingshot" effect to accelerate / decelerate.  We're a long way from having the ability to fly around the solar system at will  a-la Frontier, but there is research into matter / anti-matter propulsion going on which may one day prove a viable proposition.

It's not that I'm against the idea of slingshots: we cannot do without them for the time being. It is just that the title of this thread ('Star Trek technology for our Moon colonies') is in my opinion a gross overestimation of what ESA achieved. It is a marvellous result, yes, but we haven't even come close to rivalling Star Trek yet.

[PMC]

Cymric wrote:
 and unlike Frontier, which has that marvellous bug/feature that braking is truly instantaneous when in ... err, what's that mode called, maximum time ignoration (for lack of a better word ;-)), the Real Thing obeys the laws of physics.

Haha!  Yep, how true...  Great game though.

It's not that I'm against the idea of slingshots: we cannot do without them for the time being. It is just that the title of this thread ('Star Trek technology for our Moon colonies') is in my opinion a gross overestimation of what ESA achieved. It is a marvellous result, yes, but we haven't even come close to rivalling Star Trek yet.

The laptop on my desk is smaller than the computer in Kathryn Janeway's office and I wonder what Jim Kirk would make of a Nokia 4110 mobile phone...  

Seriously though, although the achievement seems less than impressive it's still a step forward.  Remember, I (and I assume you too) belong to a generation which expected to be flying to Tokyo at hypersonic speeds by 2004 and that humans would live and work on the moon.  The fact that we aren't is a cause for disappointment, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that my telephone would have the sort of processing power that was not too long ago the sole preserve of a super computer.  An extract from a 1991 copy of Amiga magazine about the then new 68040 25Mhz accelerator: "It's difficult to imagine a need for such frankly ridiculous processing performance...".

[whabang]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
hm, thought the Ion engine was more a thing of Star Wars, than Star Trek, since the latter comes up with warp engines (wich is something entirely different)..
Still, a nice invention these Frenchies came up with, this ion engine can theoretically accellerate objects up to near-lightspeed.

It's not French, it's Swedish! :pissed:


:lol:

[Speelgoedmannetje]

eeeh, sry
I really thought twas a French invention
But I read the article about this invention a few years ago, so I must have confused it with another invention.

Anyway, the Swedish are quite inventors, with their Ikea knee stool :lol: :pint:

[whabang]

...or the safety match, or the adjustable spanner, or the milk/cream separator, or the pagemaker, or the dynamite, or the ironclad (predecessor to modern warships), or the ball bearing, or...

[Speelgoedmannetje]

whabang wrote:
 or...

anything made of wood and is very usefull at home :lol: :-)

[KennyR]

By far the most useful and powerful Star Trek invention is the catsuit. Catsuits are amazing motivators. Even when Star Trek had totally run of stories, inspiration and connectable characters, the catsuit kept viewer figures up against all odds.

If a really awful new series of Star Trek with the worst theme tune ever can't damage viewer figures because there are catsuits in it, this technology is easily useful for lunar exploration. We just send 100 catsuited women to the moon, and the 2% most intelligent (but sex-starved) of the population will do absolutely everything to get up there and build enough internet cafes to support them. It can't fail.

[Cymric]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, as it is at the same time outrageously funny and really, very much, without a shadow of a doubt, the truth.