Here is one of the most ingenious ideas I have heard in a long time,
for powering spacecraft, this dude has a 75,000 dollar grant from
Nasa for the advanced concept program.
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn7538-antimatter-harvester-may-fuel-future-spacecraft.html
The idea is you put up a ten mile diameter chicken wire sphere
and charge it up positive. That does two things, one, it repels
protons coming in from the solar wind (when I say put up, I mean like in between the moon and earth or out farther) and attracts anti-protons which apparently we have in relative abundance floating around
in the general vicinity of earth like kilograms of it. Out towards Saturn and beyond, even more. Now Kilograms might not sound like so much
but when you do the math, a spacecraft would only use about
10 MILLIgrams of the stuff going all the way to pluto and
about one half ounce going all the way to Alpha Centauri (my favorite
place for a first interstellar voyage) so to have KILOgrams around
just for the fishing is absofrappinglutely incredible. We couldn't make
a kilogram on earth if the entire worlds gross national product was
devoted to it for the next hundred years! So inside the ten mile
diameter chickenwire cage is another sphere about 300 feet in
diameter that does the collecting and slowing down and trapping
of the days catch. Fishing for anti-protons!
Originally posted by Tirau DanI hope you realize I was not being literal here, just alluding to the
20m coil of chicken wire weighs roughly 15kgs...
10 mile cage will take a lot of trips to space on the shuttle.
$75000 mmmm spin off development light weight rustproof chicken wire without zinc.
idea of an open mesh, the whole thing would probably weigh in at
a ton or so if it were hair fine wire, conductive of course. The only
thing that I wonder about is yes you repel protons coming in from
the solar wind but with a positive charge on the mesh you would
attract electrons which would end up in the same magnetic trap as
the anti-protons, they are both charged negative. You would have
to do something like a mass analysis step to separate the two
otherwise one electron meeting one anti-proton, instant gamma
ray. I know a lot about mass separation, its part and parcel of the
Ion Implanter world I inhabited for 20 years. (quite a place, Implanter
world, it had a really charged up population🙂
Originally posted by sonhouseIn NZ we do everything with No.8 fencing wire and chicken netting our economy and social system depends on it.
I hope you realize I was not being literal here, just alluding to the
idea of an open mesh, the whole thing would probably weigh in at
a ton or so if it were hair fine wire, conductive of course. The only
thing that I wonder about is yes you repel protons coming in from
the solar wind but with a positive charge on the mesh you would
attract electro ...[text shortened]... abited for 20 years. (quite a place, Implanter
world, it had a really charged up population🙂
Could a speeding space poop take it into space. If hair fine could it be ripped to shreds by debris and meteorites?
Originally posted by Tirau Danchances of stuff hitting a wire the size of human hair is next to
In NZ we do everything with No.8 fencing wire and chicken netting our economy and social system depends on it.
Could a speeding space poop take it into space. If hair fine could it be ripped to shreds by debris and meteorites?
nothing. Look at how many satellites, probes, space stations, etc.,
are up and very few hits are taken. My wife came up with an idea
for this mesh thing. If you can collect anti-matter like this, could you
build a spaceship that uses such a system to collect its fuel on the
way to whatever destination its after? Methinks 10 mile size would be
too small but maybe 100 mile or 1000 mile wide mesh might do it.
What a concept! pick up your fuel for free kind of like the solar sail
but with a hell of a lot more thrust and you don't lose power just
because you are going away from the sun, a trillion miles away gives
you just as much as next door. I think anyway. Moggles the bind!
Originally posted by sonhouseyouv'e been waiting along time to say "absofrappinglutely".
Here is one of the most ingenious ideas I have heard in a long time,
for powering spacecraft, this dude has a 75,000 dollar grant from
Nasa for the advanced concept program.
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn7538-antimatter-harvester-may-fuel-future-spacecraft.html
The idea is you put up a ten mile diameter chicken wire sphere
and charge it u ...[text shortened]... does the collecting and slowing down and trapping
of the days catch. Fishing for anti-protons!
One thing I would like to find out about this idea is if these
antiprotons somehow congregate around or are made in our solar
system or if there is a large cloud of this stuff in interstellar space.
If its only around the solar system in general then it would be great
for going to the outer planets and all but not so great for a self-fueled
interstellar craft. News at 11.
