Deep space spacecraft

[Zolar V]

If we had deepspace spacecraft what would they look like,

what would they have for purpulsion and why.

how large would they be,

if they were to connect to some sort of space station how would they and why.

what type of refrence system would they have for navigation, as in where would they refrence themselves to.

what types of weapon systems would they have.

how would they target and how would they work

when answering these please keep in mind actual physics and real solutions. but also dont leave out theoretical physics or theories that have yet to be proven such as "folding of spacetime for "warp drives"" but obviously keep out stuff like magic and imaginary stuff.

[Ophiolite]

Zolar,

a book could easily be written to answer your questions. Indeed many books have already been written that address many of your questions. I for one would need to know more about your motivation for asking these in order to properly address them.

 

It sounds as if you are planning to write an SF novel and want someone else to do your research for you. If that is not the case please accept my apologies for the insinuation. In the meantime I shall offer you these brief observations and questions.

 

The appearance of the craft would be contingent upon four things

1. The absence of any need to streamline the vessel.

2. The speed at which it would be operating (since at significant fractions of c forward shielding would be essential.

3. The character of the propulsion system.

4. The character of deep space the craft is travelling through. (Probably a minor point, but it might be relevant.)

5. The aesthetic preferences of the designers.

 

There are umpteen propulsion systems that have been proposed: Bussard ramjets, ion rockets, nuclear explosions, and so on. Deep spacecraft would use the one(s) that enabled the objective to be attained in an economic manner using accessible technology. (If you think that answer is to generic and obvious try asking a less generic question. )

 

They would be as large as they needed to be to carry whatever cargo and personnel you needed them to carry to whatever destination you had decided on for whatever purpose you had, plus all the drive systems, fuel and life support equipment necessary to complete the trip. Again, another generic question that is impossible to answer in specific terms.

 

Your space station connection question is even more generic. I won't even attempt an answer to that. You really ought to be able to answer that one yourself, or - as requested above - let us know why you are asking all these questions in the first place.

 

In general spacecraft orient themselves by identifying certain of the brighter stars.

 

Why would these spacecraft have weapons systems?

 

Over to you.

[insane_alien]

Why would these spacecraft have weapons systems?

 

vapourising debris in their path. at significant fractions of c altering course may not be an option available.

[Ophiolite]

Sorry insane, but that does not constitute a weapons system. You can beat a sword into a plowshare, but the optimum design of sword and plughshare dictate that they shall be different.

 

If you require to pulverise material in your path you will use a system that could be used as a weapons system, but that will not be why it was designed and that is not what it will be. Although I have not made it explicit (and arguably not even implicit) my reference to shielding in point 2 included not only physical shielding, but shielding provided by a laser system, or other such device.

[Moontanman]

If we had deepspace spacecraft what would they look like,

.

 

Ah something like this?

 

 

This is pretty much what you asked for, you may as well take the warp drive too.

[Zolar V]

I am flattered that you would think that i am a writer, but i am not. The reason why i ask these questions is because i am a visionary, i ponder what other people pass off as pure fantasy or irrelivent. It is just my nature. Im sorry that my questions were not succinct enough but i was trying to be general to allow people to put thier own ideas in without any friction to the original question. I however have plenty of ideas and explanations to answer each of the questions.

 

I will start with taking your ideas, ophiolite, and giving them a reason why they may be right or wrong.

 

"1. the absence of any need to streemline the vessel"

In my opinion i would say that is false, if you were to travel through space you would encounter many different sizes of particles that could damage the ship if it were not streemlined. Of course it not the same type of streemline that would be used for reducing the μ here on earth. It would be used to negate any friction caused by the massive amount of particle debries in the system.

So i would say that yes it is streemlined.

 

"4. The character of deep space the craft is travelling through. (Probably a minor point, but it might be relevant.)"

I would say that the character of deep space would have a more significant impact of ship design then what you might think.

The reason for this is, if you were flying through a nebula or some sort of gasseous cloud, could those gasses have a detrimental effect on the hull of the ship. I you were flying to a system that has 100-1000 stars extreemly close by, the radiation may have a greater impact on the hull as well. I would site something about the 100-1000 but i cant remeber where i saw it. Apparently there is a system in which about 1000 stars are extreemly close to each other. even a few stars that orbit other stars.

 

As for the space station.

The reason why i asked this question is because if a ship were to dock on to a station in any other way that would inhibit free movement when detached, I.E like a nasa rocket sitting on a platform, when the ship goes to take off its thrust generated would nock the station off course via "every action has an equal and oposite reaction" Newtons 3rd? law of motion. So i would imagine that the space stations way of handling a ship or multiple ships would be either a kind of ring-tube shape attached to the station that would allow the ship to enter the tube, attach to a walkway, and allow for repairs if needed to the ship.

 

Ss an addon to the space station question. what would the "tower controls" be, as a guy from the airforce i know just how hellish tower is, and i personally dont do that, i fly on the plane . so i would think that if the station was heavily trafficed there might be some sort of computer program designating which ship goes were, or even taking controll of the ship at a certian distance from the station to park it were it wants.

 

Now for the "gps" system.

I was more thinking that if there were deepspace crafts flying about that one would need a better sense of intergalactic direction IE a compass for space. I initially was thinking that the best sort of refrence for the craft would not be the local stars but rather it be refrenced to earth. but after much thought earth might not be the most suitable choice. It may be refrenced to whatever solar system has the largest economical empire. What i mean by this is that, why would a ship be refrenced to earth or to a earth imperium if earths imperium was dying. Lets take a look at 100 ad, in the time of the Romans all of the "present" maps were drawn with refrence to Rome, being as it was the capital of the empire. After the Roman empire fell, rome was no longer the refrence of the maps, once countries had established themselves i believe the next refrence would have been France.. until France went bankrupt and the argonauts killed the ruling monarchy, after that it was Great Brittan. Currently it is America i do believe.

 

Now we progress to the weapon systems.

If there was 1 deepspace craft flying and a space station that it could dock to, then why arnt their more. If ther are more ships flying about then how many would be pirates or how many would belong to another civilization that you may be at war with. also on side note, what about the immensity of the galaxy and the possiblility of organisms that may not be conscious but act like wild animals.

so that being said, the ship needs to be armed with one or many weapons that both use material ammo and dont use material ammo. i would think that (seriously) a ship in space would have Laser weapon systems, extreemly large Laser weapon systems. you could have these weapons without the effect of overheating by simply heatsinking it to the skin of the craft and allowing space to cool it down. or build the system entirely on the outside of the craft but with adequate shielding for radiation and micro metoers. imagine basicly a cannon on a 16 c. galleon, its on the deck. of course large lasers would require large amounts of power, and if you were in some area of space were there is literally nothing then the only power system would be one that you carry with you.

 

Power systems.

If our said ship was on a extended journey through space on some mission, possibly catalouging planets and systems for mineable resources and habitability with regards to tereforming, it would require on onboard power system capeable of extreem longevity. in my opinion only nuclear fission, or possibly fusion, would be a possible solution. i would think that along with these systems you could have other forms of power, stored in different battery cells, such as solar power, and may be some sort of system that could capture consmic rays and put them to use.

Edited November 8, 2009 by Zolar V

[Jason Chapman]

I may have posted these pictures before, I've been away for a while busy getting married and everything. But here's my represebtation of what a deep spacecraft may look like in the next 200 years.

 

 

I do have a lot more image on the drawing boars which I will be rolling out soon.

[Sisyphus]

What's a "deep space craft?" You mean an interstellar craft that carries humans?

 

If so, then I expect they would be very large, self-sufficient, spinning (for simulated gravity) ecologies. Since traveling to even the nearest stars would take decades if not centuries, the ships themselves would be permanent homes. In fact, they would have to be permanent communities in every sense, including raising children.

 

What form of propulsion they would have is unclear, but things like Bussard ramjets are possibilities, and obviously that would greatly influence what the "ship" looked like.

 

As for weapons? No weapons, probably. There's no point. A space ship in deep space is utterly on its own. Talk about "pirates" is crazy - there aren't any pirates if your nearest neighbors are a 200 year journey away. But if you must blow stuff up, it wouldn't be that hard. A space ship is already going to have a crazy relative velocity to stuff around it, so any old dumb projectile will have plenty of kinetic energy. Throw a can of soup at it.

 

As for a "space compass" or standard reference system, what would be the point? In space, you can see exactly where you are relative to everything else, at all times. Great visibility! Plus there aren't really any fixed landmarks, at least not with great precision. And more than that, relativity makes any kind of a common frame of reference technically impossible. Any craft would just use itself as a point of reference, I guess.

[MrBrat2u]

The title of this reply is what I used in a Google search and that is how I came into this forum. While I know that I will never leave this planet (I am 60 something and semi-retired), I am often thinking about deep space travel. And I have concluded that the best shape for a deep spacecraft is a ball.

 

And a very large ball at that. Capable of housing, e.g being the home, of thousands of people. On top of outer skin would be solar panels to catch any sun light and just under the outer skin would be water storage tanks (radiantion shield). This deep spacecraft (DSC) would be assembled in space using space elevators to lift materials from the Earth's surface. Perhaps the DSC would be the upend of the space elevator and when released from the elevator the DSC woluld begin it's trip to the distant stars. Once released from it's Earth teather, it would be traveling in excess of 1666 mph and once out of the shadow of the Earth the solar panels would act like solar sails and push the DSC faster and faster until the edge of the Sun's light range. Or perhaps a flight path can be used to travel close to other planets to use a sling shot effect to enhance the DSC speed. However never how fast the DSC will travel, it will take many generations of people living on the DSC until it will even reach the closest Earth like planet (probablly not yet discovered).

 

Along the way, the DSC will leave small repeater stations that will trasnmit information back to Earth and other human locations and get technology updates as the trip progresses (longer each time for the exchange or continious stream of information).

 

When? Given that 100 years ago we were just playing with flying aeroplanes and now that technology is doubling every few days(!), it will not be long!

 

Funding: Did I mention that some astrioids contain gold and diamonds?

Maybe an x-prize for the first DSC that will completly self contain a population of 1,000 and travel a minimum of 1,000 mph?

Edited December 17, 2009 by MrBrat2u
my laptop and brain went into hiberation.

[npts2020]

Mrbrat2u; Two things that practically leap out of the screen at me. First, solar panels will be more burden than help by the time you leave the solar system, there just isn't enough light to make them work after a certain point. Second, 1,000 mph (or even 1,666 mph) is an extremely slow speed for even leaving the solar system to reach another star, let alone reaching another galaxy.

[Edtharan]

"1. the absence of any need to streemline the vessel"

In my opinion i would say that is false, if you were to travel through space you would encounter many different sizes of particles that could damage the ship if it were not streemlined. Of course it not the same type of streemline that would be used for reducing the μ here on earth. It would be used to negate any friction caused by the massive amount of particle debries in the system.

So i would say that yes it is streemlined.

Travelling to another star system (deep space travel) in a reasonable time frame will require a high velocity.

 

What this means is that "friction" is not the problem, but collisions are. When your ship hit a particle (or object) while travelling at these high velocities, the friction that this would produce would be almost insignificant. However, the energy of the collision with this particle would be massive.

 

E = M * V

 

Energy = Mass * Velocity

 

So if your velocity was 200,000,000 m/s (2/3 light speed)

 

and the Mass of the particle was 1 gram.

 

The resulting energy of the would be around 200,000 joules, or about the same energy as the 200 square meter area surface of the Earth receives form the sun each second. If this hit your ship, it could vaporise a large enough section to cause serious damage (it probably wouldn't blow up the ship though).

 

So you would need shielding of some sort, coupled with an active defense system like radar to detect larger objects and then thrust sideways to avoid it. Vaporising the particle would not work as this would still leave the object in your path, just as a gas rather than a single object. However, a gas cloud is far more dangerous than a single particle. A Single particle might punch right through the ship and not impart all the energy of the collision with the ship, where as a gas cloud from a vaporised object would impart far more energy from the collision into the ship and thus do more damage.

 

A far simpler option is to just thrust perpendicular to the object until the ship is no longer going to hit it. As velocity in a perpendicular direction to travel is not effected by the velocity in the direction of travel (and does not effect the velocity in the direction of travel), you can manoeuvre out of the way and let the particle pass.

 

This would mean that the ship be a narrow as possible in the direction of travel (like a thin cylinder) so as the ship would not have to move too far to avoid the object (the maximum distance the ship would need to move is equal to half the diameter of the ship plus the error margin of detection - but in practice you would move more for extra safety).

 

So this would make the ship appear streamlined to some degree, but it would have nothing to do with friction, but making as small an area as possible for the ship in the direction of travel.

 

what would they have for purpulsion and why.

IT would need some form of long term power generation capacity (nuclear) and a high thrust to fuel ratio engine (probably Ion drive) that can be sustained for long periods of time.

 

You would not want a ship that would thrust much more than 1g (9.8m/s/s acceleration) as this would be uncomfortable for any passengers. Also at 1g one could reach very high velocities quite quickly. In 1 day you could reach a velocity of 846,720 m/s.

 

So (not counting relativity), to reach the velocity of 200,000,000m/s would take just over 236 days (less than a year). In a trip to alpha centauri (4.2 light years away) the trip would take around 7 years.

 

Or to Epsilon Eridani (known to have a planet in orbit around the star) which is 10.5 light years away would take around 17 years.

 

These are well within the lifetimes of humans (even for return journeys)

 

This is, of course, not accounting for relativity, but at 200,000,000 m/s there is not much in the way of relativistic effects on the ship.

 

if they were to connect to some sort of space station how would they and why.

The only reasons to connect to a space station would be to load supplies, fuel and passengers. It would likely be constructed as if it was a space station itself as well as getting supplies and passengers. So shuttles, or other transfer vehicles would be used, rather than docking it directly with a space station.

 

what type of refrence system would they have for navigation, as in where would they refrence themselves to.

Navigation would be much like they have now for space craft.

 

There is no absolute frame of reference. This means you can't have a "compass" in space as such. What you can use is gyroscopes to tell you your attitude (angle from a known direction) and the positions of stars to tell you where you are (and also your angle as well).

 

As you travel between stars, the positions of the stars will change. This means the "constellations" as we know them on Earth will be different if you are around another star system. As we know the positions of nearby stars, we can track the apparent motions of these stars and from them determine our motion through space.

 

Upon entering the new solar system we would need to locate any recognisable objects (like planets) and use these to help us determine our position and motion.

 

what types of weapon systems would they have.

As I showed earlier, a weapon system on a ship for defending it from collisions is a bad idea. It is far simpler and safer to move out of the way.

 

If you are talking military use, then you would probably use similar weapons to current weapons: Throw something solid and massive really fast at the target (maybe with an explosive warhead on it once it has penetrated the hul of the target). A Laser system powerful enough to damage another ship would make yours so massive that it would make avoidance of hazards more problematic (you want the lightest ship you can get away with). Also, if you ahve a reflective skin on the ship (or more high tech a meta material with a negative refractive index), then lasers would be almost useless against you.

 

If you think about it, a Laser needs to be directed at the target, this means you need to reflect the laser at the target from where you generate it from. If the laser beam can be reflected by you, then why could it not be reflected by the target as well? And, what if they reflect it back at you?

 

But what is the point of military use of weapons. In deep space there is no real territory to control, there is no resources, no population, and so forth. Military use of deep space is pointless.

 

how would they target and how would they work

Again, weapons are pointless (for hazard avoidance), so you would not need any for a peaceful Deep space vehicle. However defensive systems would use radar to spot hazards and then smaller thrusters to avoid them them. There would also be some kind of heavy shielding on the front of the ship to absorb any impacts that could not be avoided in time (or detected).

 

This shield would not be a hard material, but a gel of some kind as this would slow the impact down and allow the absorption of the impact energy (same principal as an air bag or crumple zone in a car, or bubble wrap).

 

If we are talking about military applications, then many weapons would be self guided and small. They would be launched towards the target and once close they would home in and release their payloads. These would be designed to avoid the collision avoidance defensive systems and be able to counter manoeuvre towards the target (so that they could not avoid the collision).

 

Military encounters at these velocities would be very brief if the ships are not on the same heading and travelling at similar speeds (not chasing one another). The impact energies at these velocities would be more than enough to do serious damage. You want high density materials for the warheads and you would not need explosives (the amount of energy an explosive would add to an impact would be far less than the amount extra mass would do)

 

If the ships are in a chase scenario, then the energies of impact would have to be generated by the weapons themselves, so it is in this situation you would be using explosive warheads as the as the energy contained in the mass/velocity would be much less than in the chemical energy of the material.

 

As for pirates, well...

 

If the pirates were to chase the ship, they would need to start off from where the ship left so as to accelerate up to its speed (remember a ship could potentially accelerate for half the journey and then decelerate for the second half as this would enable the fastest trip), so any pirates would have to either start at the same time and place or spend more effort (acceleration) to catch up with them. However, as the ships will be accelerating for several months, a pirate ship needing to accelerate fast enough to catch the ship would have such a high energy expenditures (engines) that any "booty" got form them would not be worth it. Also, that constant high acceleration would injure the pirates and they probably would not survive the chase.

 

If the pirates don't try to catch up with them, and then just attack the ship, the ship might be destroyed, but the ship will still be travelling so fast that they probably would not be able to catch it and all their effort would be wasted (plus the energy expended to catch the ship would make any thing they got worthless).

[Zolar V]

hmm what a nice break down and logical thought process on the above described situation. honestly its quite similar to my own break down.

[Sisyphus]

You would not want a ship that would thrust much more than 1g (9.8m/s/s acceleration) as this would be uncomfortable for any passengers. Also at 1g one could reach very high velocities quite quickly. In 1 day you could reach a velocity of 846' date='720 m/s.

 

So (not counting relativity), to reach the velocity of 200,000,000m/s would take just over 236 days (less than a year). In a trip to alpha centauri (4.2 light years away) the trip would take around 7 years[/quote']

 

It should be noted, however, that 1g is actually quite a lot of thrust to generate, and a scale of days to years is a very/i] long time to generate it over. The space shuttle, when it takes off, has about 4g of thrust (for a 3g acceleration from the surface) for a measly 8 minutes. And for that, the great majority of its total mass has to be fuel.

[Edtharan]

I know. But part of the OP was that theoretical technologies should be allowed. If you had several Ion drives operating at "theoretical" thrust outputs, then it could be possible to achieve a 1g thrust (although you are still looking at around 90% of your ship's mass being fuel).

 

Also as the initial thrust scenario I proposed was fairly short compared to the flight time (about 2/3 of a year) then a combination of "engines" could be used (including theoretical ones).

 

A light sail powered by a laser form Earth (or in orbit of the sun - with very large arrays of solar panels (or even giant mirrors to focus the sunlight for improved solar sails), or a massive fusion powered laser in the outer solar system) could be used to give some of this thrust. Ion drives could then be used in concert to achieve greater thrust. There is also the theoretical Fission Pulse Drives (or maybe even fusion) where they explode a nuclear bomb behind the ship to give it thrust.

 

These could provide a 1g thrust for a long enough time (theoretically), however slowing down at the other end is where the problem lies for this (but combinations could be used again - eg: Ion + nuclear pulse drives to slow down).

 

But yes,this is just speculations.

[D H]

I know. But part of the OP was that theoretical technologies should be allowed. If you had several Ion drives operating at "theoretical" thrust outputs, then it could be possible to achieve a 1g thrust (although you are still looking at around 90% of your ship's mass being fuel).

Just a bit more than 90%. Assuming a specific impulse of 100,000 m/s, the mass ratio needed to go to Alpha Centauri at 1g and reversing thrust at the halfway point is 10⁴⁷⁸⁴. Using hydrogen fusion (Isp=0.119 c) helps somewhat; now the mass ratio only needs to be 10^13.4. The best specific impulse that can be attained is a collimated beam of photons, and this requires a matter/anti-matter annihilation engine. Such an engine requires a mass ratio of only 39 to reach Alpha Centauri.

 

Bottom line: You can't take the fuel with you.

[dragonstar57]

it would have to go at least .25 the speed of light to go any place fast enough

as for weapons rail guns would work well for space dust avoidance just shoot at it hard enough to make it fly out of your way

[Moontanman]

Since this is something i give a considerable amount of thought to, i know but it's my time to waste, lol, I think a torus shaped space craft rotated to give a reasonable g force inside and a magnetic field to use as a sail. in my mind this could be used to travel around the solar system, such trips might take years but living conditions would be much better than a one shot trip to mars taking a couple of years. this space craft would travel consistently to various locations have shuttles to visit planetary surfaces or to transfer supplies of raw materials to the craft. it would be the permanent home to the people who lived there, the inside would be a ecology, trees, lakes, streams, with what would be to them underground living conditions with the park like conditions above. This type of craft could in theory travel to other stars, slow boats where the trips would be in generations. magnetic sails to escape the suns gravity and to decelerate at the end of the voyage. These ships would be permanent colonies, eventually avoiding the gravity wells of the planets completely, long term artificial worlds slowly spreading across the galaxy, we should the Galaxy in a few million years...