Spaceship concepts from The Dream Machines

[cjackson]

How plausible are these concepts?

Thomas Ciesla's Centauri project utilizes a terraformed asteroid with antimatter propulsion that can travel at 30 c

Alan Holt's interstellar transport system uses two field generators and 16 field amplifiers to create a space-time bubble around a vessel

Giles Primeau's Heracles project uses muon catalyzed nuclear fusion propulsion and can reach Mars in 3 days. It uses negative muons for lower temperatures and has an isp of 1 million seconds with the ability to accelerate 1g.

Charles Orth proposes an inertial confinement fusion vehicle named VISTA. I has many high energy lasers mounted around the surface of a cone with mirrors directing beams to the detonation site at the apex. Pellets of deuterium, tritium, and hydrogen are ejected into the focus where they are detonated creating high energy plasma directed by the drive coil's magnetic field. .02 g acceleration or greater is possible and VISTA can reach Mars in 45 days. John Callas has an antimatter variation that is 1 kilometer wide and utilizes protons and antiprotons. This vehicle can make Epsilon Eridani in 100 years.

[grapes]

They're just dreams

[neilzero]

None of them are likely in this century except Vista. Half unity may be practical for spacecraft propulsion as the high speed plasma is an effective ejection mass, with the electricity a by product.
If we throw lots of money we can likely terraform a tiny asteroid by 2025, but that may be impractical, as we have no economical way to produce or store enough antimatter to propel the asteroid significantly. I don't think we even have a good theory on how to direct the very hard gamma from the annihilation, so the gamma will mostly heat the asteroid and it's crew.
The 2 field generators and 16 field amplifiers is a spin on Bob Lazar's element 116 which allegedly emits gravitons. I think we have since made some element 116 and could detect no gravitons, unless this is another government cover up. Worse, I don't think we have a clue how to amplify gravity or gravitons even if we had some gravitons.
I don't think we have an economical way to make or store negative muons in sufficient number to catalyze the nuclear fusion. Worse I can't imagine how we can avoid ejecting our expensive negative muons with the rest of the ejected plasma, other than a heat exchanger made of unobtainium. Do negative muons really catalyze fusion? Neil

[cjackson]

What about these?


Gary Hudson's solar system spaceship is single stage reusable vehicle that will operate like a commercial aircraft. It's payload is 20 percent of gross weight. It powered by an advanced fission/fusion pulse engine, and has a composite material pusher. Propellant will be water heated by pellets of either 238u/235u hybrid or 238u/LiD/239pu layered capsule or antihydrogen that are detonated by an electron or heavy ion beam. In the atmosphere the vehicle launches with VTOL tip driven lift fans. After ascending to 30,000 ft the scramjets ignite, and at mach 1.2 the vehicles begins to climb. The scramjets stop when the craft is moving at 11,000 ft/sec as it coasts to orbit where the nuclear engines activate.

A. Bond proposes the Ram Augmented Interstellar Rocket which can accelerate to .20 or .30 c. Interstellar protons act as the reaction mass, with a small fraction used for the ships lithium-proton reactor.

[cjackson]

Robert Enzmann's fusion-powered vessel is powered by 3 million tons of super-cold deuterium in a metal sphere that is 1,000 feet in diameter. The sphere will act as a radiation shield for three crew modules behind it. Each will be 300 feet long and 300 feet in diameter. They will have 20 decks and 100 rooms each, with portions of the modules able to rotate to produce artificial gravity. The craft is 2,264 feet long overall. Behind it are 24 fusion engines able to accelerate the vessel to .09c. Alpha Centauri can be reached in 60 years.

[selden]

Bear in mind that these are all called "Dream Machines" for a reason -- while they don't seem to violate any physical theories (except for the graviton one), they're far beyond what's technically feasible today. Of the ones you've mentioned, the one that's probably the closest to realization is Hudson's. Except for its nuclear stage, it almost sounds like a description of the Skylon. Its nuclear propulsion stage, however, would not be allowed to fly in the foreseeable future for political reasons.

[Delvo]

Anything that talks about bending or expanding/compressing or otherwise manipulating space or space-time is inherently less realistic than all of the ones that don't. The rest are all essentially rockets, and we already know rockets fundamentally work. Bending of space is something we have no way to cause or influence.