Making a space ship?

[cogman]

Hey guys

 

After watching star trek I was thinking .. why can't we build an awsome spaceship like that and send it off into space where it can warp to different galaxy's.

 

1.)What does it take?

2.)What materials are needed?

3.)IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE?!

 

note: Im just a 16 year old trekkie inspired by star trek and sciencee

 

Thankssss guys - I look foward for replies

[swansont]

Star Trek is science fiction. Warp drive is not a feasible technology.

[toastywombel]

We cannot do this because firstly we are not anywhere near designing a model of a working "warp drive". Furthermore, a space-ship on the scale of the enterprise would require so much in cost.

 

1. It would take decades of research on how to design such a craft, and billions if not trillions of dollars of materials and labour to put it together. No engine or rocket, currently in production could propel a ship of that size effectively.

 

2. The problem of having enough food, water, and supplies to support a crew as large as the one on the enterprise is also an issue. All the above listed are extremely heavy, therefore they would have to factored in to the construction of an engine or rocket.

 

As far as being able to move a space-craft like the enterprise at the speed of light through space-time? No it would not be possible.

 

Photons (the fundamental particle of light) move at the speed of light partly because their rest mass is zero. It would take an infinite amount of energy to get something with mass to get going at the speed of light. Furthermore, even if it was possible one would run into the problem of being able to stop the craft. If something is moving at the speed of light it has essentially infinite momentum because it has infinite mass. Also travelling at the speed of light would be tricky. Your path would have to be determined exactly right, and even then you run the risk of running into a lump of dark matter or whatever unknowns may be in the path of where you are going. The type of computing and instrumentation needed to plot these paths would also have to be designed.

[Phi for All]

Manned spaceships require too much in the way of life support. Unmanned ships packed with devices to record as much data as possible are more realistic at our present level of technology and resources.

[Moontanman]

I think it's with in our technology to build a space ship that could cruise around the solar system. Visiting the various planets on missions that would last several years. It might not be as glamorous as traveling the galaxy but it is much more practical and doable. A reusable space craft that travels the solar system should be on the agenda of our space programs.

[Phi for All]

I think a manned trip from the moon to Mars would show us how feasible manned flights further out in our own system are going to be. I just think it's ultimately too costly in terms of payload to have a live team on board when you can pack it with so much more robotics and telemetry gear that you aren't obligated to retrieve should something go wrong.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The other big problem is fuel. It's hard to just "cruise" around the solar system without lots of fuel to change your course, and that fuel makes launching the spacecraft impractical.

 

Look at New Horizons, the spacecraft currently en route to Pluto. Because of fuel limitations, you can't launch it at high speed toward Pluto and then have it slow down and enter orbit -- slowing down takes too much fuel. So the thing's just going to blast right past Pluto, taking as much data as it can as it does.

[A Tripolation]

Oh...I remember a wonderful article linked to by someone that had a supposedly high-profile physicist discussing the plausibility of a starship powered by a micro black hole.

But for the life of me I can't find it now. Anyone know what I'm talking about, or am I just rambling?

[Mr Skeptic]

Oh...I remember a wonderful article linked to by someone that had a supposedly high-profile physicist discussing the plausibility of a starship powered by a micro black hole.

But for the life of me I can't find it now. Anyone know what I'm talking about, or am I just rambling?

 

Yes, I thought of the same thing. There was also an article in New Scientist about it. Making a micro black hole is the hard part, and even then we don't know for sure if it actually does emit Hawking radiation. If it works it would be better than fusion as an energy source, and on par with antimatter (but better if you ever need to refuel).

[cogman]

woahza's!.. Just came back from school and im really surprised on the amount of replies lol

 

well lets just say... give it some years and scientists combined with engineers might even be able to make a spaceship .. Whoo knowssss

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... and in star trek "Zefram Cochrane" invented the warp drive in 2063... soo.. i guess we just might need to wait a while

[Mr Skeptic]

... and in star trek "Zefram Cochrane" invented the warp drive in 2063... soo.. i guess we just might need to wait a while

 

But if you want warp drive, we first need to invent new laws of physics. Or rather, discover new ones and hope they allow for warp drive. Otherwise we're stuck at sublight speeds, though we can still explore the galaxy that way.

[cogman]

Indeed.. Although how about testing with a little shuttle craft that uses an engine from a really fast Superjet? I mean who says we have to start building U.S.S enterprises all of a sudden straight away. From building a a little shuttle craft scientists can expand their knowledge and experiment with different components.

[Mr Skeptic]

Chemical engines will not get us to the stars. Jet engines don't work in space.

[cogman]

Hmm.. good point.. never thought of that

 

Why doesnt it work in space? Is it because theres no oxygen.. sorry im a noobie lol

[Mr Skeptic]

Yes, jets use atmospheric oxygen. Rockets carry their own oxygen. However, the oxygen actually weighs more than the fuel (for a hydrogen-oxygen rocket, the oxygen weighs 8 times more). Chemical rockets are limited by the energy stored in the fuel and the mass of the fuel; as a result they can barely leave Earth. Most of a rocket's mass is the fuel used just to get it off of Earth. And remember, once we start traveling fast enough we need to slow down so we don't leave a crater at our destination, and slowing down takes the same fuel as speeding up.

[cogman]

How about using the engines from rockets just to get off earth but maybe have a large supply of oxygen in a mass contains on the shuttle so the engines can be powered???

Or does the oxygen actually have to be in the air ?

[Sisyphus]

All propulsion involves pushing mass backwards in order to move forwards. There's no way around this. When you walk you're pushing off of the ground (and actually moving the entire Earth a tiny, tiny amount), when you fly a plane you're sucking in and throwing backwards the air around you. In space, there is nothing to "push off" of, so you have to take your own mass with you as fuel. This is what a rocket is: an explosion that throws mass behind you so you move forward. The effect of this is that you have to carry a whole lot of mass with you to go anywhere, and the more mass you have the more fuel you need, the more fuel you have the more mass you have, etc. This is why when the space shuttle flies into orbit, most of the weight is actually just fuel, and almost all of it gets used up just getting into space.

[ajb]

But if you want warp drive, we first need to invent new laws of physics.

 

Maybe not, general relativity may permit such things. See Alcubierre drive.

 

The problem with this and other similar interesting space-times is that it requires exotic matter to support them. That is the matter violated certain energy conditions found in classical general relativity.

 

However, quantum effects are known to violate these conditions. (It turns out to be difficult to consider quantum theories on curved space-times that do not violate energy conditions!) Maybe micro-warp drive is possible? Maybe we could use quantum effects to engineer such a drive and other exotics like wormholes? Who know, maybe one day.

[Mr Skeptic]

How about using the engines from rockets just to get off earth but maybe have a large supply of oxygen in a mass contains on the shuttle so the engines can be powered???

Or does the oxygen actually have to be in the air ?

 

If you are suggesting taking oxygen into space to power jet engines, then you are confusing what a rocket is. A rocket is a chemical engine that carries both fuel and oxidizer.

 

But you can actually do the opposite, use jets to go to high altitudes and then go the rest of the way with rockets. This saves you fuel in two ways: the atmospheric oxygen can be used to power the jet, saving a lot of mass, and the wings can be used to generate lift (essentially pushing off of the atmosphere). Then, a rocket can be fired at high altitude to go the rest of the way.

 

Virgin Galactic is doing this, using an air-breathing mothership to lift a rocket powered ship to high altitudes. I think this is a very good idea as far as chemical rockets go.

 

Personally, I'd prefer for liftoff to use a nuclear lightbulb.

[ydoaPs]

Maybe not, general relativity may permit such things. See Alcubierre drive.

At superluminal speeds, the warp field becomes dangerously unstable. Also, the 'inertial bubble' would be Hawking irradiated.

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9707024

http://arxiv.org/abs/0904.0141

 

 

 

I like the idea in the wiki article you cited:

Krasnikov proposed that' date=' if tachyonic matter cannot be found or used, then a solution might be to arrange for masses along the path of the vessel to be set in motion in such a way that the required field was produced. But in this case, the Alcubierre Drive vessel is not able to go dashing around the galaxy at will. It is only able to travel routes which, like a railroad, have first been equipped with the necessary infrastructure. The pilot inside the bubble is causally disconnected with its walls and cannot carry out any action outside the bubble. Thus, because the pilot cannot place infrastructure ahead of the bubble while "in transit", the bubble cannot be used for the first trip to a distant star. In other words, to travel to Vega (which is 25 light-years from the Earth) one first has to arrange everything so that the bubble moving toward Vega with a superluminal velocity would appear and these arrangements will always take more than 25 years.[/quote']

hyperspace railroads ftw!

[Moontanman]

I guess it was just too damn much to let people dream about warp drive, they had to take that away too, lol

[Mr Skeptic]

Maybe not, general relativity may permit such things. See Alcubierre drive.

 

Well, the Alcubierre drive seems to be unstable aside from being hard to build, but I get your point. I meant that we have no guarantee as of yet that it is or ever will be possible to make a warp drive, though I'd agree that it is too early to definitively say it is impossible.

[ajb]

I would not rule it out, though as noted such drives seem unstable, require exotic matter and are definitely outside our current engineering capabilities. It looks unlikely to be realised but you never know, something similar maybe allowed.

 

 

It seems generally unavoidable that semiclassically when ever time travel or warp drives are imagined that the energy-momentum tensor (expectation value of) diverges. However, it could be possible that a full quantum gravity theory could regulate this and the warp drives could be ok.

 

As for the Hawking radiation, I am not sure if this could be a real problem or not. I doubt I will have time to get into it it deeply.

[cogman]

Wow! Theres some really good point making going on here .. i just dont know what to say now.. except... Star trek was meant to be set in the future.. so maybe we should give it some time because its not FUTURE enough lol... C'mon there must be another Einstien out there!

[Moontanman]

For most of the concepts in Star Trek to eventually be real would require that we are dumb as stumps about how the universe really works, heres to hoping we're totally wrong! and Star Ships are real!