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Imagine a "World" called Solaria, inhabited from the orbit of Mercury to out beyond the orbit of Neptune. Imagine a vast Solar Federal Republic or the Solar Federation if you like, governing a huge society of people living in space from inside the orbit of Mercury to out beyond Pluto. What sort of transportation technology would be necessary to make this possible?
Communication is at the speed of light, the maximum time is about is a few hours, nothing really unmanagable, and sort of analogous to governing the United States before the invention of the telegraph. People will want to travel through the Solar System as speedily as possible in order to conduct their business and move their trade goods from place to place. What sort of space ship or space transportation could accomodate this? To give a few examples to get us started, how about these:
Antimatter spaceships:
Fusion spaceships:
Huge orbital tethers including space elevators from planetary surfaces:
Beamed space ship propulsion:
Solar Sails:
Magnetic Sails:
Fission rockets:
Solar thermal rockets:
Mass Drivers:
Ion Drives:
What sort of technologies do you think will be used?
To give you a good frame of reference, lets say we're talking about the 22nd century.
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I've voted Fusion (in an Orion style configuration, already possible), but it really depends on what you're trying to transport. Antimatter rockets won't be possible until we have a way of producing and storing Antimatter without requiring huge amounts of energy. Fusion will be used for fast trips, Ion for unmanned cargo, NTR for quick jaunts in Orbit (LEO to the Moon), Solar sails not at all (not enough acceleration), Mass Drivers probably not at all (you are talking inter planetary?), and Orbital Tethers maybe, depends whether Nanotubes are strong enough.
It all depends on how fast you want to go.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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I personally highly doubt that the colonised planets and moons of the solar system could be brought under a single goverment, this would be a place where travel takes weeks to months between plantes and other bits, where communication has lags of upto hours, its very likely that all colonised worlds after they reach a population threshold they will splinter from what ever put them there.
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Antimatter I think might have a slight edge over fusion and given the higher energy more worth the effort.
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Not Fusion bombs in an Orion configuration?
NTR for small shuttles though.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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I Voted Fusion because it very likely that it will be achieved by the mid point of 21st century.
If Fusion is achieved, it will be like a second industrial revoltion.
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And?
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Damn, my plan to use Thermonuclear bombs in an Orion spacecraft is impossible.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Gosh, Tom---what do you care. You'll be long gone by then. That is, unless you put increasing longevity on your list!
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That's what I meant when I said Fusion.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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I've voted Fusion (in an Orion style configuration, already possible), but it really depends on what you're trying to transport. Antimatter rockets won't be possible until we have a way of producing and storing Antimatter without requiring huge amounts of energy. Fusion will be used for fast trips, Ion for unmanned cargo, NTR for quick jaunts in Orbit (LEO to the Moon), Solar sails not at all (not enough acceleration), Mass Drivers probably not at all (you are talking inter planetary?), and Orbital Tethers maybe, depends whether Nanotubes are strong enough.
It all depends on how fast you want to go.
Cosmic rays can produce antimatter, and perhaps antiprotons can be found stored in Jupiter's Van Allen Belt, maybe there is some there now, and if we can collect it and store it, that's something. In principle, we can let the Universe make the antimatter for us.
I don't really know how antimatter is going to be made in the future, or even whether it is going to be economic, or whether it would make more sense to go with fusion. Fusion is said to be low thrust, though in principle, I don't see why you couldn't land on a planet with an antimatter rocket. Something like a plasma window might be required to keep atmosphere out of the reaction chamber.
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Gosh, Tom---what do you care. You'll be long gone by then. That is, unless you put increasing longevity on your list!
That is certainly possible, or perhaps we'll have brain scanning technology and upload copies of our minds into computers, then the software will care about such things.
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I personally highly doubt that the colonised planets and moons of the solar system could be brought under a single goverment, this would be a place where travel takes weeks to months between plantes and other bits, where communication has lags of upto hours, its very likely that all colonised worlds after they reach a population threshold they will splinter from what ever put them there.
I don't think revolutions for independence are necessarily inevitable. Communication time lags upto hours aren't unmanagible. What you have to worry about are the places where people live, not necessarily the space inbetween.
I think the trend towards larger and larger nation-states and power blocks such as the European Union will continue, and the colonization of the Solar System will take enourmous resources such that only large nations and small nations pooling their resources together will make the effort. So what you have here is a few colonizing powers establishing colonies throughout the system. Will the colonies rebel or revolt? I think that depends how they are treated. I see no particular reason why they should be mistreated simply because they are colonies. I don't think it inevitable that we should replay the American Revolution or any other revolution.
Having a single civilization will reduce the likelyhood of war and danger for the individual. In addition there aren't any established nations of cultures out there, so we will basically be creating our own from scratch. People will initiall mix and mingle I think, and develop their own culture, all of this will be particularly young, and with so much space and so few people, there is not a lot of reason for fighting out there, perhaps piracy, and criminal behavior among individuals. Some authority will be established with spheres of influence. To ease friction, some civilizational framework may be established, perhaps replacing the UN, much depends on who the primary colonizing powers are and what decisions are made.
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I just want to clear something up:Fusion IS NOT high thrust.
No one really said what type of fusion powered craft.
There are several possible ways to do a fusion powered craft.
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A Fusion reactor could power VASIMIR type engines or high powered ion thrusters
Or there is always the possiblity of a fusion rocket of some kind.
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A fusion rocket on the surface of a major planet, would be more or less like a "beached whale" unless it can develop a thrust on the order of multiple Gs and operate within an atmosphere.
One possibility would be to use something called a plasma window.
Plasma exerts a pressure just like a gas, and plasma unlike a gas can be manipulated by magnetic fields into a barrier that prevents cold gases from rushing into the reaction chamber and spoiling the fusion process by cooling it down.
So basically we need to maintain high temperatures in the order of millions of degrees within the reaction chamber, and in order for it to be a rocket, the reaction chamber needs to be open to the outside world so it can develop a thrust. So vacuum within the nossil needs to be maintained. A microwave laser can heat the in-rushing air to tens of thousands of degrees celsius so that it becomes a "cold" plasma. The plasma is then manipulated by a magnetic field to form a wall keeping out the surrounding air. Air that touches it gets heated to plasma temperature and also becomes part of the plasma window presurving the vacuum inside in which the really high temperature plasma is heated to fusion temperatures. A fusion torch develops over powering the plasma window and pushing aside the surrounding air to generate multiple Gs of thrust to lift off the surface of the Earth. I don't know if that is possible, but that is what is required to get off of Earth barring some other system like a space elevator or a chemical rocket.
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I'm asuming Fusion NTR doesn't stand for Fusion pulse engines of some sort, so i'm going with those instead. In essence, same as Orion, but a fusion instead of fission blast, using lasers to set off deuterium-tritum fuel pellets.
Now technically unfeasible, but we're talking about a solar system-wide civilization, so I'm guessing a few technological wonders might aply. Besides, it can use smaller blasts and higher frecuencies for a smoother ride.
Rune. Nukes may not be the answer for everything, but they DO come in handy sometimes.
In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a "bad move"
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