There is a theory that has been kicked around for many years that Black Holes are more then they appear. Tears in space time leading to other universes is one of the common theories. Another theory is that Black Holes themselves contain new universes within them. This is bound up into the theory of general relativity. General Relativity allows for the existence of black holes. Objects whose mass exerts enough force to exceed the Universal Constant of the speed of light. Yet at such force, the very fabric of time and space breaks down, which leads to wild scenarios.
For example. If you were to hypothetically fall into a black hole, someone observing your fall into the hole will watch you red shift, i.e get slower, and slower and slower. Eventually, to the observer above the hole it will seem that you have become frozen in time. Your body will remain in that state for thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, hundreds of MILLIONS of years. Nobody alive will ever see you cross the event horizon. Nor will whatever species evolves after your observers millions of years later. They will come upon the anomaly and still see you there, falling into the black hole.
Yet to you, the fall will last mere seconds. Time itself will be ripping past you as you descend and you will see the observable universe above you spin like a top (assuming you are still alive) as time accelerates for you. But you will die of old age before you reach the singularity. Because the singularity will always be in your future, and even the crushing force of gravity cannot accelerate you fast enough to "catch up to it". Time is not bound by general relativity. The speed of light is constant. Time itself is not. Sweet dreams.
There is a theory that has been kicked around for many years that Black Holes are more then they appear. Tears in space time leading to other universes is one of the common theories. Another theory is that Black Holes themselves contain new universes within them. This is bound up into the theory of general relativity. General Relativity allows for the existence of black holes. Objects whose mass exerts enough force to exceed the Universal Constant of the speed of light. Yet at such force, the very fabric of time and space breaks down, which leads to wild scenarios.
For example. If you were to hypothetically fall into a black hole, someone observing your fall into the hole will watch you red shift, i.e get slower, and slower and slower. Eventually, to the observer above the hole it will seem that you have become frozen in time. Your body will remain in that state for thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, hundreds of MILLIONS of years. Nobody alive will ever see you cross the event horizon. Nor will whatever species evolves after your observers millions of years later. They will come upon the anomaly and still see you there, falling into the black hole.
Yet to you, the fall will last mere seconds. Time itself will be ripping past you as you descend and you will see the observable universe above you spin like a top (assuming you are still alive) as time accelerates for you. Time is not bound by general relativity. The speed of light is constant. Time itself is not. Sweet dreams.
yeah if you plot a vector into a black hole on a penrose diagram or whatever the timelike direction rotates 90 degrees by the time you cross the event horizon (ie space and time do a fliperoonie) and the singularity becomes an event at the 'end' of time, with your own universe on the other side of an inaccessible domain boundary, with nothing seeming to jump out that would distinguish it from the universe we're in
obviously
it's mindblowing i guess if you haven't done enough acid to have realised this stuff already in the bath but it's not spooky or whatever
I have an idea. What if you position drones into a cylinder that is kilometres tall, each of them capable of generating an upwards magnetic field that could help lift up a rocket that is designed for this flying through it. To what extent would this work?
I have an idea. What if you position drones into a cylinder that is kilometres tall, each of them capable of generating an upwards magnetic field that could help lift up a rocket that is designed for this flying through it. To what extent would this work?
Some really interesting space news, the Britbongs at Pulsar Fusion have claimed a milestone in their fusion rocket engine design.
This is honestly an intriguing idea that's a lot more practical than other nuclear propulsion designs like NERVA that would heat up propellant using fission to achieve increases in specific impulse.
Basically its a design that uses magnetic fields to achieve plasma fusion with the superheated plasma product then being ejected out the nozzle at speeds much faster than chemical rockets. They promise an incredible leap in rocket technology - something like 30 times the specific impulse of ordinary rockets or a specific impulse of 10,000 to 15,000 seconds. Of course they don't mention what the energy requirements are for achieving fusion for a given weight of fuel. That will be a real stickler.
I'll take it all with a grain of salt but it is interesting.
I have an idea. What if you position drones into a cylinder that is kilometres tall, each of them capable of generating an upwards magnetic field that could help lift up a rocket that is designed for this flying through it. To what extent would this work?
what's it meant to achieve?
if you're imagining some troll physics trick: no, equal and opposite reactions.
if you're just thinking about more payload to orbit/less fuel: sure kinda you'd get some minimal effect because it's just an extremely shitty linear accelerator with extra steps and a *shitload* of wasted energy: the fields (they'd be better off machine gunning ping pong balls up its cooch i think? but i'm not a magnet wizard), the fact that drones only work for a couple km because air density and need more power the higher you go, the added payload for giant-ass drones to carry huge fuckoff capacitors instead of just using a magnet on a stick or something, etc. and it would do basically nothing because you'd have to space them far enough apart that they don't fuck with each other (i guess you could get around this with the timing you'd need to do anyway but now you're also creating a gun that shoots these very expensive bespoke robots down into the fucking dirt/each other/rocket exhaust at the same time).
and, then, if you are actually benefitting from carrying that 0.2% less propellant on a booster, i sure hope you don't need it when one of the drones inevitably fails or hits a bird or there's wind or something because you just introduced a thousand new points of failure at the most dangerous phase of a launch
some kind of ground launch assistance isn't infeasible though and we'll probably get around to it eventually, but i'd go with like a big rubber band over that imo.
right idea but (a) you're overthinking it and (b) this is the kinda shit you do to get some grains of extra efficiency once you've maxed out the rest of a tech tree tier.
i love all blue sky propulsion companies and i'm sad when they (all) run out of VC and die
but imagine making this huge dramatic mockup video of your amazing imaginary battlestar galactica technology and then finishing it with the actual 2-second demo of you in a closet lighting a fart in a jar
i love all blue sky propulsion companies and i'm sad when they (all) run out of VC and die
but imagine making this huge dramatic mockup video of your amazing imaginary battlestar galactica technology and then finishing it with the actual 2-second demo of you in a closet lighting a fart in a jar
It honestly could be some light that they repurposed from a rave or picked up from a David Cronenberg set.
Not exactly an ironclad proof that real progress is being made but like I said I think it's a good concept. I just wonder how real their impulse claims are if they manage to actually get that thing to fire exhaust.
That dildo belongs in a museum! Funnily enough they probably can sail it to within a kilometer of the air and space museum at the port of Alexandria. The only rub will be getting it into the museum itself.
Sadly I think that difficulty means its just gonna be mounted at Starbase somewhere eventually. It really is a national treasure though as an example of this generation of spaceflight, the miracle of its survival and second miracle of surviving being a sailing ship for a month.
The machine god sends his blessing upon this sacred construct.
I hope that thing stays as far away from the Air and Space museum. If it goes there a second a democrat gets in office it's getting turned into razors.
I have an idea. What if you position drones into a cylinder that is kilometres tall, each of them capable of generating an upwards magnetic field that could help lift up a rocket that is designed for this flying through it. To what extent would this work?
Total @QuasiAwesome victory. The only way to progress in rocket technology is through building shit and seeing how it fails then fixing that and repeat until it doesn't fail anymore though
Total @QuasiAwesome victory. The only way to progress in rocket technology is through building shit and seeing how it fails then fixing that and repeat until it doesn't fail anymore though
I mean, theoretically its possible. We just have to solve issues like the force of gravity, wind shear, less gas in the upper atmosphere to support drone flight and figuring out how to keep a large electro magnet hovering in one place while using less energy then it takes to keep it there so the excess is strong enough to power the mass driver.
Simple!
That said though, I do like the idea of magnetic powered acceleration for getting into orbit.
Basically, this. But with magnets. And instead of the length of a football field, its the length of oh....100 miles or so and slowly orients the launch vehicle in an upward direction as it accelerates to escape velocity.
The issue is where to put the damn thing, and the only answer is antarctica. Lets just say such a launch platform really won't do good things for the local environment or the eardrums of anyone within a few kilometers of it. But it is in theory doable, assuming we want to spend a shit ton of money for the nuclear reactors to power such a mega project.
Really though it would be a structure more useful on the Lunar surface. No atmosphere and far less gravity.
Total @QuasiAwesome victory. The only way to progress in rocket technology is through building shit and seeing how it fails then fixing that and repeat until it doesn't fail anymore though
and figuring out how to keep a large electro magnet hovering in one place while using less energy then it takes to keep it there so the excess is strong enough to power the mass driver.
that's easy, you don't
you just make big ass metal spheres that are basically a giant solid state capacitor and coils
you charge them up with something renewable/free (between launches so it doesn't need to be fast), then when you launch you shoot a whole bunch of them with trebuchets or whatever, then they activate with a timer or a long ass string that pulls out a pin when they get to the right point and orients them or whatever, in series
then they land in a big swimming pool and roll back with bowling ball return technology
simple
Sounds like SpaceX isn't going to try to catch Starship during the next launch.
I really wish SpaceX would've built a much simpler tower to catch ships at sea so as to avoid major problems if the catch doesn't go perfectly. Like a simple catch tower that only hold an empty ship, arms can only open and close, and a simple crane for lowering the spacecraft onto a barge.
Sounds like SpaceX isn't going to try to catch Starship during the next launch.
I really wish SpaceX would've built a much simpler tower to catch ships at sea so as to avoid major problems if the catch doesn't go perfectly. Like a simple catch tower that only hold an empty ship, arms can only open and close, and a simple crane for lowering the spacecraft onto a barge.
It would have to be moved the same way they intend to move ships to Florida form Texas. So it would have to be set down on a ship that would lay it on its side or some sort of vertical framework on the barge could be built. I'm not saying they should do this for all launches but it should be there as a backup if things don't look quite right or if they need to reduce the risk of damaging the launch hardware in the event that they need to do a large number of launches in quick succession.
