Of Particular Interest To Our Fenspace Crowd...

[Epsilon]

But cool enough that everyone should read it.
I'm not a physicist by any means so I'm not certain how viable this is. But it is damn cool.
Between this and the GAMMA RAY ANNIHILATION LASERS the world is becoming more and more awesome.
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Epsilon
So how long until that little boy Japanese robot is equipped with these?

[robkelk]

Holy **** - that's a reaction-mass-less engine.
And he says it already works.
And he built it with off-the-shelf components.
Gentlefolk, we just hit GURPS TL9...

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[ECSNorway]

Alright, who left the valve on the handwavium tank open?

This rocks.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

---

Gentlefolk, we just hit GURPS TL9...

---

That makes TL8 what? About 5 years long?
But DAMN is that cool.
Bob, you mind forwarding this to SJG and asking for an official ruling as to Earth-1's TL? I just think it'll be neat to know.

[HoagieOfDoom]

Oh, HELL YES.*********
Touched By His Noodly Appendage
www.venganza.org

[WengFook]

One major leap forward for space exploration, another step for mankind
Nice _______________________________
We're definitely playing this game wrong. I thought Vampire was supposed to be a game of personal horror, not about ninja magic-carpet airstrikes at night.
- A friend after playing a session of Dark Ages Vampire.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. THERE IS ONLY WAR!
-Same friend.
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[CattyNebulart]

a week to mars... jikes, that would probably hurt (if I remember the math right with 1g constant aceleration/deceleration it would take nearly a month to get to mars from earth. I'll have to double check that math but doing that in a week sounds like pulling some serious G's.
Edit: never mind some back of the envolope calculations shows it taking a few days 2-3 to get to mars at 1 g when mars is at the closest point and a little over a week as the time as the time when mars is in opposition
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Logan Darklighter]

WOW!!!
Keep a 1g acceleration to midpoint, then a 1g deceleration the rest of the way... You wouldn't even have to worry about all the detrimental effects of weightlessness for most of the trip!
Just DAMN!
I'll keep my enthusiasm in check, though. I remember the whole "cold fusion" ferfluffle a few years back...-Logan
-----------------
"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
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[CattyNebulart]

oh I agree traveling at 1G is the way to go, unfortunatly that costs quite a bit of fuel. Momentum is always conserved, so you are throwing out a lot of stuff all the time for that kind of speed.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[TheTwisted1]

Some simple physics calculation gives the following relationship between laser power, P, and the acceleration, a, of the vessel: P=M*a*c, where M is the vessel mass (including the thruster) and c is the speed of light in vacuum. For a vessel the mass of the Apollo 11 moon mission, or about 47,000 Kg, to reach 1 g = 9.80 m/s^2 acceleration, you would need a coninuous output of about 138 Terawatts. For comparison, the world's current most powerful laser, the NOVA laser used in fusion experiments at Laurence Livermore National Laboratory, produces about 100 TW. So there's a bit of scaling up needed, and even then, you need to figure out how to store that much energy and feed it that quickly to the laser: 138 TW * 1 week = 8.35*10^19 J, which is equivalent to about 930 Kg of mass via total conversion.
Edit: I have more detail in this entry on my Livejournal.
--The Twisted One"Welcome to Fanboy Hell. You will be spending eternity here, in a small room with Jar-Jar Binks and Dobby the house-elf."
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."

--Voltaire

[Bob Schroeck]

---

Bob, you mind forwarding this to SJG and asking for an official ruling as to Earth-1's TL? I just think it'll be neat to know.

---

I wouldn't be surprised if Steve already knew about it -- anyone see a recent Illuminator? But when I get my act back together after tomorrow, I will inquire.
And yeah, this is pretty damned cool.

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.

[robkelk]

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anyone see a recent Illuminator?

---

I have the Daily Illuminator in my "daily link" bookmark set. This hasn't shown up there yet...

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[M Fnord]

---

For a vessel the mass of the Apollo 11 moon mission, or about 47,000 Kg, to reach 1 g = 9.80 m/s^2 acceleration, you would need a coninuous output of about 138 Terawatts. For comparison, the world's current most powerful laser, the NOVA laser used in fusion experiments at Laurence Livermore National Laboratory, produces about 100 TW.

---

More to the point, the NOVA produces a hundred terawatt pulse that lasts on the order of microseconds. For this light engine to be useful, it would have to be capable of producing 138 TW continuously through the flight.
To sum up: unless you've got a zero-point energy cell in your back pocket, file this one under "pipe dreams" and move along.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Kokuten]

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hundred terawatt pulse

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Also, is anyone else thinking of the Kzinti Lesson?
-WG, doesn't need a lesson, thanksWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Duane Peters]

Er, guys, this is not a reactionless drive. This is just a reaction drive where you can leave the engine home to work on it. Charles Sheffield and Robert Forward have both written about variants of this drive; Forward even proposed a variant on this drive (combining it with a solar sail) so you could even use it to *stop* at your destination. I'll look up the actual info when I get home to my library for exact quotes.
Sorry 'bout dat.

[Bob Schroeck]

That's what I get for just skimming the article.
Ah, and I see where everyone went sideways -- Rob said

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Holy **** - that's a reaction-mass-less engine.

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and somewhere along the line we all mentally edited "-mass-" out of that.

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.