new propulsion 90-day mars trip

showtime17 · 2004-12-05 22:17:48

I dont know if this has been discussed before, but this is an interesting article that i ran across

http://altspace.aresinstitute.org/archi … .html#more

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-05 22:42:24

I think there was a thread about this already...

The long and short of it is that these people are full of crap, that their beam would require far too much electricity and fuel to produce on either end, and the beam may be deflected/dissapated by natural magnetic fields, if it could be focused over such a long distance at all. Oh, and if the beam pushes on way, the space station will be moved the other, and the beam will knock the firing station right out of orbit.

John Creighton · 2004-12-05 22:45:30

hmmmm.....This sounds somewhat like Errorists http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … 6]particle beam refuling.

BWhite · 2004-12-05 22:46:37

I think there was a thread about this already...
The long and short of it is that these people are full of crap, that their beam would require far too much electricity and fuel to produce on either end, and the beam may be deflected/dissapated by natural magnetic fields, if it could be focused over such a long distance at all. Oh, and if the beam pushes on way, the space station will be moved the other, and the beam will knock the firing station right out of orbit.

Hmmmm. . .

Can't say I disagree in any respect with GCNRevenger on this one. :;):

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-05 22:50:57

I'd be happier taking my propulsion system with me on a manned flight to Mars, imagine loosing the beam half way to Mars and just free floating off course without any hope of the propulsion beam hitting you again. And what effect would gravity and the solar wind etc have on a beam over such a distance?

Graeme

John Creighton · 2004-12-06 11:04:03

I'd be happier taking my propulsion system with me on a manned flight to Mars, imagine loosing the beam half way to Mars and just free floating off course without any hope of the propulsion beam hitting you again. And what effect would gravity and the solar wind etc have on a beam over such a distance?
Graeme

Yeah I found it odd when in the article they said not having to rely on the solar wind. I think it would be the other way around you would want the propulsion system to be able to work with just the solar wind incase the beam failed. Anyway I think the main obstacle to the idea is supper conductor technology and not plasma physics. The designers may get all the math right but find they can produce enough current to generate the needed magnetic field without burning up the wires or using more energy then their power source can provide. This is especially true if they want to use solar power to power this thing.

chat · 2004-12-06 12:01:56

Wouldn't it make more sense to use microwaves or a laser beamed back to earth from mars?

They are not effected by the solar wind, and a robot microwave or laser station on mars could be built on earth then sent to mars.

Maybe not microwaves but a laser if the microwaves cant be focused well enough from mars to earth.

You could power an ion drive with it easily, and when the ship isn't using it, its free earth power.(sort of free)

A ship going of course will need a secondary correction system though.
A small electric generator should do the trick if the mars beam is not up or not working well, or you drifted off the beam.

John Creighton · 2004-12-06 12:07:53

I agree chat. I discussed that in a http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … 4]previous thread. Once high thrust electric propulsion is available it could be the key to traveling in space and mining asteroids. However the field produced by a large supper conducting ring would cover a huge area with a small amount of mass and would be an easy target for the sollar wind or a plasma beam.

ERRORIST · 2004-12-06 22:58:11

This is a similar idea. Except, my idea was to recollect this matter and use it to propel the spacecraft further by exhausting it back out of the spacecraft towards the direction of the original beam.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-06 23:53:35

Wouldn't it make more sense to use microwaves or a laser beamed back to earth from mars?

How would you focus a laser over 35 million miles (I think thats the minimum distance), plus you'd need a lot of energy to power the laser - a small generator would just not be enough.

Graeme

ERRORIST · 2004-12-07 00:10:35

I would think in the vacuum of space it would not become to diffused. Perhaps, the acceleration could take place rapidly within the first few hundred thousand miles.It would be powered from solar cells.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-07 00:15:39

I would think in the vacuum of space it would not become to diffused. Perhaps, the acceleration could take place rapidly within the first few hundred thousand miles.It would be powered from solar cells.

I was talking about focus not diffusion. The beam would be huge after covering 35 million miles.

Graeme

ERRORIST · 2004-12-07 00:56:25

Well, if light can reach us here on Earth from light years of travel it should be possible to focus such a beam across such short distances.

The beam would be huge after covering 35 million miles.

What if acceleration of the craft took place in only 100,000 miles and it coasted the rest of the way?

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-07 01:04:30

Well, if light can reach us here on Earth from light years of travel it should be possible to focus such a beam across such short distances.
The beam would be huge after covering 35 million miles.
What if acceleration of the craft took place in only 100,000 miles and it coasted the rest of the way?

On the first point, the distance light travels from distant stars has no relevance to the ability to focus a laser.

As to the 100000 miles worth of beam, it would still be huge, I'd also be unhappy sending a ship out that would have to coast for nearly 35 million miles.

Graeme

ERRORIST · 2004-12-07 01:19:58

As to the 100000 miles worth of beam, it would still be huge, I'd also be unhappy sending a ship out that would have to coast for nearly 35 million miles.

If the ship arrived in 30 days who would care if it coasted most of the way?

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-07 01:28:34

Would a ship arrive anywhere after receiving power for only 0.3% (is that right, its too early to work stuff out now ) of its journey.
A ship should have a power source built in, then plans can be changed en-route.

Graeme

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-07 02:34:31

I thought I'd work out the size a laser beam would be after travelling between the Earth and Mars. Taking into account the following...
56,327,040 km shortest distance from the Earth to Mars
That for these calculations the laser would have the following a 1.0 milliradian divergence angle, and an exit hole of 1.0 mm
The beam would expand to a diameter of 56327 km

Okay, so for propulsion purposes the divergene angle would be less, and the exit hole would be bigger, but the beam would still have spread to an incredible diameter and if the beam size has increased the amount of energy its supplying will spread over that area too reducing the effective energy supply to the ship.

Graeme

ERRORIST · 2004-12-07 02:39:33

How big after 1,000 miles?

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-07 02:46:27

1 mile if you use the same divergence/exit hole sizes as the previous calculations.

For a laser to be useful, it would either have to use some lens system that could focus the beam to a point which for a moving ship would need to be computer controlled to keep up with the constantly changing distances; or it would need to produce an absolutely parallel beam.

Graeme

chat · 2004-12-07 05:30:01

Trying to focus a laser between mars and earth would be a tech challenge, but not unrealistic, 1/2 the distance might be better.

Maybe done in a 2 stage approach, 1 on Phobos and one on a convenient asteroid between earth and mars.

An asteroid that is heading in the general mars direction would be ideal.

One big laser placed on the moon would also go a long way to getting the ship up to speed quick.

With 2 laser systems if one is broken you can still arrive at mars, then use the same system to return to earth via the asteroid and moon laser.

Power shouldn't be a problem since you can use a small reactor to power each laser.

Costs will be pretty substantial though, but once in place its a freeway to mars and back, and an added benefit of a boost to the moon anytime you want.

chat · 2004-12-07 05:39:18

This might sound silly but
Don't a few asteroids orbit generally between earth and mars?

Catching a ride on one each way is very cheap.

Must be a few of the near earth asteroids that would take us most of the way for free.

If non exist then a little tweaking of a small asteroid would be a permanent earth mars ship.

MarsDog · 2004-12-07 08:29:29

resolution = (range*1.22*wavelength)/diameter

diffraction limit if Mars at 300 million kilometers
yellow light 500 nanometers
1 meter telescope mirror

(300X10^9 meters*1.22*500X10^-9)/1 meter

1.83X10^4 meters = 18.3 kilometers

-

so, if you could get a 100 meter adaptive optics mirror
the receiving end would only need to be 183 meters

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=2& … 42]Optical frequency sythesizer coming to the rescue,
to phase lock an array of lasers, eliminating the mirror ?

John Creighton · 2004-12-07 09:12:12

Back to magnetic fields interacting with charged particles. One benefit I forgot to mention about this kind of propulsion system is it gives you protection from the solar wind. BTW, what is the mass and momentum flux of the solar wind? What is the compostion?

ERRORIST · 2004-12-07 10:41:13

Mostly H2, HE and some FE ions. I forget the charge. If you look at the poles of the Earth the Nothernlights are composed of the charged particles. To me it acts as a ion trap. If you can collect the ions while they are trapped you can reuse them for propulsion?????

John Creighton · 2004-12-07 10:48:19

Mostly H2, HE and some FE ions. I forget the charge. If you look at the poles of the Earth the Nothernlights are composed of the charged particles. To me it acts as a ion trap. If you can collect the ions while they are trapped you can reuse them for propulsion??

That is why I asked about the mas flux. If you can collect the solar wind why bother to beam particles at all from earth?

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Re: new propulsion 90-day mars trip

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