/sci/ - Science & Math

Kubrick's ship in 2001:A Space Odyssey

Project Valkyrie.

>like we mock the cleaning robots and home PCs of the past
but cleaning robots would be cool :(

>>3988549
how does this work, again? plasma jets?
Also, I bet there's a way of sticking the engine at the back. There must be.

>>3988554
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLIPLiQDIk0

>>3988554
yeah, they would. But not 8ft metal boxes wearing polyethylene wigs, and with a single moving joint.

Posting this is gonna get me killed. Posting this is gonna get me killed. Posting this is gonna get me killed. Killed.

>>3988560
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Valkyrie
Colonel Coffee knows far more about it than me.

>>3988570
You're already dead, comrade.

You could have a rotating halo, which could simulate gravity without any fancy technology. That's what I like about Halo, the idea of ring shaped plantets was not very popular, but actually makes a lot of sense as a way to cheaply simulate gravity on a synthetic planet.

inb4 obscure sci fi with halos

>>3988564
I don't know who you're talking about but can you set us up for coffee? She sounds lovely

>>3988575
Meh, I don't think it could manage interstellar travel though, could it?
I'm thinking specifically about realistic ship/ ways of simulating gravity on them

>>3988583
BEEP BOOP NOT PROGRAMMED FOR LOVE

>>3988575
>ringworld
>obscure

>>3988572
Thanks.

anthropomorphic:
from our given data set about evolved intelligence and the things we assume for habitable planets, a biped is the most likely candidate for another intelligent life form. for different forms of intelligent life we have a data set of exactly {}. evidence weights in anthropomorphic favor.

explosions in space: this could be interpreted as a UI feature. the computer of the ships gives directional information via visual and audio cues. why limit yourself to one sense?

up-down: we are humans. we evolved on a flat surface. we might suck horribly at 3 dimensional navigation. if that is true and not just a matter of habituation, ships of any shape will always have an up and down, as much as they will have a front and back.

tl:dr; for any assumption you bash, you are making others.

You could do it with two module types. One is arranged like a skyscraper, with "down" pointing toward the engine. While the starship is accelerating (at around 1g for comfort), the crew has simulated gravity in this module. When the starship begins to decelerate, the second type of module, which is cylindrical, begins to rotate. The crew moves to this module to experience simulated gravity when the starship is no longer accelerating, but coasting. Later, when the starship flips over to decelerate, they move back to the first module. That way the crew can experience simulated gravity during the majority of the trip.

>>3988626
-Bipedal != human with mask and green paint
-Because sound in space.
-I realise this, my problem is with the fact down is the same direction everywhere. the ISS crew don't do this.

Somebody mentioned my name so here I am.

>>3988669
Speak of the furry

So, Inurdaes says you know about project Valkyrie? I can't glean that much from the wiki about their solution to the gravity problem, how would they be handling it?

Also, would they have some kind of thick shielding against interstellar radiation? 100 tons sounds like barely anything.

>>3988666
By the way: I was assuming the traditional "engine at the back" design would be used. With Project Valkyrie, the engine is in the front. In the first module, "down" is opposite to the direction of acceleration, which would be away from the engine in Project Valkyrie.

the vogon ships in HHGTTG film

>>3988685

The acceleration would provide gravity. If coasting, you could implement a solution like Zubrin's Mars Direct where a thetered spacecraft spins on an axis perpendicular to the length of the tether, providing gravity to a module on one end or near one end.

As for shielding, the main point of the tether is to keep the engine as far away from the spacecraft, allowing gamma rays to disperse. The shield can be kept small and relatively lightweight.

>>3988708
I mean this stuff too, the apparent 10KSv/s the crew would experience: www.newscientist.com/article/dn18532-starship-pilots-speed-kills-especially-warp-speed.html?DCMP=OTC
-rss&nsref=space

>>3988724

Yeah, there's a pretty big diff between 93% of c and 99.999998% of c. Shit gets real at around 95% of c and at 99%, well, you shouldn't travel at that speed.

>>3988737
I see, that sounds fair.

So what kind of dosage would the crew be getting at full speed, do you know?

>>3988744

You'd need to know how much is actually hitting them. Since Hydrogen is mostly ionized, some of it, if not most of it, would be deflected by the magnetic field, imparting lots of drag. The rest would go through and hit the tungsten shield, the rest would go through and hit the crew module, and some of that would get to them.

>>3988758
So what kind of power are we looking at on this shield? Is it going to be an electromagnet, or something more advanced?

>>3988764

Either an ordinary electromagnetic coil or a superconducting coil put in a pool of liquid Helium for cooling. If you have room-temperature superconductors, the cost is reduced and the mass of the liquid He is removed. However you still need cooling systems since that shield is going to be meeting the interstellar medium head-on.

Essentially the same system is used to guide the plasma in the engines, it's a magnetic nozzle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nozzle#Magnetic

>>3988780
I see, thanks.

are there any serious designs for toroidal ships? Because I could see one of them being able to shift from +ve to -ve velocity without disturbing anything on board, if you had revolving cylinders inside it.

>>3988813

>are there any serious designs for toroidal ships?

None that I know of.

>>3988819
I'd better get planning then. Thanks for the help sir.

>>3988822

No, thank you for the first interesting talk on /sci/ in the past six months or so.

>>3988829
Lies, mad sci has been here more recently than that.