Precisely, this type of information is important & needs to be shared. Who knows, such information just might make the difference. By the way, Atomic Rockets has an article on this: www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/slowerlight.php#udd, and: www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2018/01/18/southern-utah-scientist-studying-potentially-most-dense-material-our-solar-system/1044139001/
@Darren Munsell I'm trying to envisage a mechanism, however absurd, that will compress a liquid under any kind of normal conditions (i.e. reduce its volume but not mass) and it isn't working for me. I remain skeptical.
Going to have to disagree with some points here. Ion engines have a far higher specific impulse than any proposed nuclear-thermal rockets. Yes, their thrust is low, but continuous acceleration over several months can get you to staggeringly high velocities, even at low thrust. Using solar or nuclear electric power, these systems can obtain far greater maximum speeds. Fission is not inherently "dangerous and unstable". Please stop spreading these irrational fears. Particularly when you are comparing it to pulsed fusion bomb propulsion. Even when accounting for the very small number of nuclear accidents (typically occurring in significantly outdated reactors) fission as a whole is the cleanest and safest method of power generation we have available. The newest generations of nuclear reactors are being designed to be passively stable, and thorium-based fuel cycles virtually eliminate nuclear waste production.
I know it's 8 months too late, but thank you. Too many people, even well educated, tend to view nuclear fission as dangerous beyond rational thinking. It is dangerous, but well within the capacities of modern society to harness and control. Even the long lived waste is overly feared, when a simple repository could be used (like Yucca mountain was going to be), to protect the environment. Cheap, clean, dependable energy would have solved a dozen problems that are seemingly impractical at the moment. Now we have to either wait for nuclear research and policy to catch up, wait for another country to solve it and adopt it ourselves, or wait for a new source, like OTEC or Fusion.
Proton boron fusion and ultradense deuterium seem to show the greatest potential for future space engines. Much more economical than chemical propulsion fuels. Another great video.
We use a dual stage fission fusion reactor to power our warp field generator. Which was successfully tested on december 18 2020. Private companies are making leaps and bounds and new discoveries that are decades ahead of everyone else. We also successfully tested an antimatter reactor in August 2018. Our more powerful ion drive sent the first prototype craft in to orbit and was successfully recovered after orbiting the earth 3 times. This occurred in september of 2019.
I'm so glad I came across this gem of a video. Serious investment into the push for space will hopefully gain the pace it should previously have done. The rest of us need to show those wanting to stay locked to the ground what it's like to fly. It's time to really explore our home.
AsteronX. Your nuclear fusion rocket video was spot-on and very well thought out. The only thing that would make this topic more complete is a second video that explains fusion as a power source for alternative space launch systems. Systems like mass drivers, orbital rings, space towers/elevators, skyhooks, loftstrom loops, and laser-driven ground-to space launches.
AsteronX Isaac Arthur has excellent videos on his channel about these launch systems. I highly recommend you check them out first. They are part of his "upward bound" series. You can find it under his playlists.
Thanks for the suggestion, we've watched a few of his videos, and we will certainly check out his videos first, once when we get to that point. But as you know, we have much to do.
I honestly believe that we should not mess with any type of mass production or use of antimatter. We should have an outpost well away outside of any planetary orbit that would be a "production facility" for antimatter. Its just too damn dangerous to have anywhere near a planet in case of an accident. Having kilograms of stored antimatter at a production or storage area near any planetary body just doesn't seem like a good idea.
Aside from the fact that one first needs a major regolith processing infrastructure to get it ( it's spread shallow and thinly across the entire surface, and mining is not what NASA does), It doesn't mean much until there are practical (not just maybe barely breakeven research devices) reactors that can use it. Otherwise, it's like going to the trouble and expense of refining and stockpiling gasoline in, say, 1880. Yes, there might be a major use for it in a few decades, but...
Its would be easier to synthesize helium 3, by bombarding lithium with neutron, but the process take a lot of time for the lithium to decay into helium 3, around 12 years
@@stardolphin2 However when you consider regolith is a good source for building materials on the moon Elon Musk may be the first to harvest helium 3 as a product of building on the moon.
@@johnunderwood-hp8rj You have to process at least 150 tonnes of regolith to obtain one gram of helium 3. That calls for a serious infrastructure that yon'e not going to invest in without a known, equally serious market. Like I said, though the total quantity on the Mon is large, it's spread pretty thin. Using a few tonnes here and there as radiation-protection structure, if you bothered to try to get He3 from it at all, won't mean much.
@@stardolphin2 It's a side venture and not your main focus. I'm amazed they want to use a 3D printer for structures made of regolith. Why not just put people out there with wheel barrows and a hoe and let them mix it by hand the way most one person operations mix concrete. It's worked for a couple of thousand years. I don't see why it wouldn't work on the moon.
Hey, look in to Focus Fusion. They are on the verge of conducting the experiments, with their new reactor and proton boron fuel, that in theory should break even.
I think it 's probably more productive to concentrate on what we might actually be able to do in the next one hundred years! Fusion and anti-mater might well never happen, so it is of little use to dwell much on them.
Mechanical shock absorbers. They knew very well how things could work and nobody from NASA or the USAF or DARPA or DoE or General Atomics said otherwise.
We're about to publish another video about four (AsteronX) in-house design concepts as well as two preexisting engine. They are: fusion, fusion-annihilation, plasma and advanced electric.
Going to offer this as more of a question than a valid assertion, as I know so little about this stuff. I hope I get some responses. It seems to me the most "ready" type right now is an updated ORION, propelled by nukes. Building it in space will require SpaceX starship- like payload capabilities, and a cis lunar transport system in place. I see two advantages; you could build a heavy, safe ship for interplanetary travel, with full re-usability. As well, you needn't worry about heavy shielding for the crew/passengers and monstrous radiators for an internal nuclear power plant. This is because the propulsion is from an EXTERNAL source and the pusher plate will shield the humans inside. As for the two major drawbacks, if u park the ORION and launch it from a "safe" position (very high lunar orbit, or the lunar L2 point?) then the radioactive "wake" becomes much less of an issue. There are already dangerous levels (to humans) of radiation in space, especially beyond low earth orbit. Secondly, why is it necessary to have nukes going off for the whole journey? Couldn't you do "daily" thrusting to get the initial delta V , and then spin the ship for artificial gravity. Repeat this daily as needed/desired. It would minimize any periods of discomfort during the "boom boom" of acceleration.
This channel deserves way more recognition! How could such a golden channel be so underrated? A channel like this should have at least a million subs. Thank you so much for making these inspiring videos. Never stop making them :)
An Atomic Rocket w/water as propellant, was suggested in the 1950's movie 'Destination Moon'. A very excellent movie. Orion would be horrible to electronics, the EMF created by each explosion on the pusher plate would be devastating.
EMP is only known with very large detonations at the edge of the atmosphere, or things that have ben specifically designed to maximize it. Orion is neither.
Built the long range ship into space, and keep it there. all necessary shielding can be build in, maybe a lead shield would also help against solar winds ? use a shuttle to go to a planet, from the long range hauler. In this setup, maybe an Ion drive can even work, after an initial bringing up to speed, with another drive ?
To put nuclear fusion into comparison; a ton would power the Human race for 5000 years, plus if there are 33 grams of Deuterium and Tritium per ton water then you can get around 33'000 tons of nuclear fusion per cubic kilometer. Then there is antimatter; 50x greater than fusion so 50 tons of nuclear fusion would take a ton of room, or a cubic meter.
No, 5000 tons would power the Human race for 1 year. Fusion would be great but it's about as energy dense as nuclear fission. Both nuclear options are millions of times better than chemical fuels of course, which is why we currently have to burn billions of tons of fossil fuels per year to meet our energy needs.
AsteronX... love your channel. It has always been a dream of mine to travel beyond the confines of Terra. I definitely see us traveling around the solar system and hopefully someone will figure it out soon while I'm still here. As far as interstellar travel, I believe that the life span of humans need to increase greatly or be augmented cybernetically. I for one would love to have my "consciousness" downloaded into an android body ala "Data" or like Captain Kirk in the Star Trek episode "What Little Girls are Made of." We can't really do anything about the distance and time factor in reaching the stars, but we can if we take our own expiration date off the table...
Action and reaction. Even a "gravity drive" expels something--spacetime. The main difference being that some propulsion systems take in as much as they are expelling.
In fact, we are no closer to real working fusion than we were twenty years ago. The best fusion experiments could only get fusion to work for a very small fraction of a second and it takes far more energy than that produced!
Fusion drive okay for short flights like going to saturn or mars or jupiter.Going over 2 light years not so great unless you want to just go slow all the way.
"Antimatter may be too expensive for electricity generation" Uhh, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't particle colliders powered by electricity? Thermodynamics says if you're turning power into antimatter you can't generate MORE power by annihilating it in a reactor. (At least, assuming equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created as I think physics mandates)
If you can create antimatter at slightly more than it's mass times c squared, and when you annihilate it to create double it's mass times c squared, so you got energy out of this thing.
I assume an Orion Nuclear Pusher Plate weighing 500 tons accelerating at 12 meters a second would only need to explode its pulse units for half an hour before reaching 20 km per second. The pulse unit explosions then stop.
Ultra Dense Deuterium is pretty dense and makes you go delerius because it’s good and plenty on the Earth. Deuterium is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen. The nucleus of a deuterium atom, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more common protium has no neutron in the nucleus. Deuterium has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in 6420 of hydrogen.
Thanks for making videos like this. I had no idea that some of the things I thought were science fiction are indeed science fact. Case in point, antimatter. With technologies like that I am left wondering why we still use chemical rockets and gold plated solar powered erector sets for space exploration.
I did enjoy the show. I would like to recommend that you not be so quick to discount plasma, however. It is not as effective as some of your more high-tech options, but very scalable and very fuel efficient. Even with thrust so low, you can still outrace chemical propelled craft to mars, and even more so to more distant targets. It is incredibly effective in station keeping in small satellites, additionally
why didn't you include the Nerva rocket? I saw a picture of it in the beginning, but nothing else. The NERVA program created and tested actual thermo nuclear rocket engines that were deemed human rated for Mars travel. If you're going into Nuclear rockets, shouldn't you have started with ones that were fully designed and tested rather than purely theoretical ones? Aside from that, i found the rest of the video really good (although work on your speech cadence)
hope so Asteron but the reflective ray and pulse thermal integrity would probably need a spinning disc like transverse too to maintain the timed tuned impulses necessary for the field magnets and hey then some whalefood krill not but really you cant imagine it's eventual inert relevity to the solar massives supposed fusion core differential . Guess the dimentions aren;t the problem with rotational and pulsed particle physics and leaner lighter fuel tanks than needle rocket props can innefficiently strain at, but well thats awesome too and probably still piercing the Max.Whatever craft should absorb such radioactivity with radiomagnetic carbur.out of this world anyhow.
Isaac Arthur is way too much into fantasy and does away with possibilities and practicability and dive full speed into fantasy land that would cost trillions and trillions of dollars that we don't have! The US is already over $22 Trillion in debt and will be much more by the end of Trump's administration and considering that he has already cut government revenues, there will be less for the next administration to work with and to pay down the debts, while the Republic ans use the debt they drove up agsinst this country to cut siocial services and regulatory agencies, and indicated by Trump's previous two budgets, and other government agencies that serve the people in favor of more tax cuts and deregulations for his and GOP investments, as the US sinks ever deeper into debt and fascism! The future of real space travel may well be left to China that is not hampered by American Republicans for ever more tax cuts for their clients and ever increasing military spending and the ever increasing US national debt!
Could you make the standard Orion small enough (reduce magazine size for example) So it could have had a Saturn V as a LEO stage, so the H-bombs could then be used in space with fear of fallout? MYbe lunch of Far side of moon, so EMPs cant affect satellites?
What about improving on the Ion Engine for surface to space like say a Thermion engine? It'll be just like an Ion engine but have the Ion reaction or the plasma stream by some means under high pressure. Would that increase velocity? If so there be no nuclear radiation to worry about.
An ion engine is inherently thrust-limited by its design. However, an "ion-engine" of sorts, that accelerates ionized gas--or more likely, plasma--at high speed by some other means, such as via magnetohydrodynamics, and powered by a fusion reactor, that could work. Unfortunately any means of electric-propulsion requires a rather large amount of energy.
@@asteronx Is it posable to build a magnetohydrodynamics in an Nozzle Actuator configuration? thumbs.gfycat.com/DarlingAgileCaimanlizard-size_restricted.gif Ultimately for anything cool in science to work the key is generation the power to make the magic happen. Here's an idea for interplanetary travel I know most of the stuff is what we know in the hear and now but I'm a outside the box guy. So what about a quango-gravitic drive that uses a super mass klystron array. It would sort of be like the Orion but in the place of volatile nuclear explosions you spit out waves of granitic force pushing you though space. Science fictiony I know but like I say all we need is a big enough power sources.... and to know the inns and outs of quantum mechanics. Its a long shot but hey when your building spaceships mite as well aim for the stars.
We are kinda beyond that. We don't need more efficient engines to get of earth. We can justsend two rockets that assemble into an interplanetary/interstellar rocket in space.
Fantastic documentary. Hard to find good things to watch on CZcams. When talking about the first rocket, what is the music in the background with the female singer and piano?
No propulsion is good enough for interstellar travel, it follows that from the formulas that E = mc2, i.e. in order to accelerate one kg of matter to light, 1 kg is needed to convert into energy. So rather you have to find some way to collect energy along the way ...
It does not necessarily have greater propulsive delta V than Orion. It depends on how the Orion is designed. They designed some with 100+km/sec delta V. Orion is also 1960s technology relying on well-known mechanics of getting the energy out. Theodore Taylor, atomic weapons designer and designer of project Orion said that even on an ambitious interplanetary mission involving thousands of detonations, erosion of the pusher plate (just plain steel) can be kept absent. He said there are any number of ways we can keep heat and radiation from eating into it. Only the really huge Orion ships used fusion (2-stage bombs). The 10 and 20 meter ships as depicted all used far less than 1kt. That Orion requires shock absorbers is not a disadvantage. It's just the way it is. The bomb blast is at a distance from the pusher plate. Neutron absorbtion is not a big problem. Orion is not only suited for carrying lots into orbit. We can do that anyway, with chemical rockets but they are not good for travel around the Solar system. That is what Orion is good for. Nothing else is "on the table" like Orion. Nothing else is as close to coming off the drawing board, and is as good. Freeman Dyson worked on seeing how big an Orion could be made. His "Super" makes a lousy slow starship, but if .15C is your ship's delta-V, that makes a huge hotel liner ship that covers 100 AU in 17 days at mid-course cruise speed. That opens up the Kuiper belt and the Oort halo. And the hardest technical problems for Orion are how to toss a keg aft at a few hundred m/sec every once in a while (hour+ for the "super), and how to coat the pusher plate with a grease-mist in between pulses.
..."and fusion energy, which is confidently expected within the next few decades." --Carl Sagan, 1980. But today, it is expected within the next few decades. :)
We have learned far more about the planets and the universe than ever before. If more had been thrown away on maned flights, we would have less money for real exploration, and thus know far less about the universe we live in, because manned flights are so, so expensive. Manned flights are not real exploration but very expensive show boating!!
It could be created in situ by a fusion reactor in small quantities if it was only needed for brief moments in the plasma... plasma in like a tokamak is already energetic enough to destroy the vacuum chamber walls if it gets out of control so for something to be released control issues would have to be licked already.
Now an antimatter cascade reactor on the other hand... that scares the shit out of me because if something like that got out of hand couldn't it like rip a planet in half before we knew what was happening? I think cascades were hinted at in this video but they are pretty theoretical atm
8:15 boron-10 would be a reasonable, cheap and relatively abundant (19.9% of natural boron) fusion fuel because only about 2% of its nuclear fusion reactions are neutronic. In space, that's much less of an issue (still wouldn't want to thrust out of Earth's atmosphere on boron-10 fuel because that 3% of the reactions that are neutronic also create tritium, which tends to screw up the DNA of living things through its own radiation).
Дуже вражає своєю постановкою.. .. тільки з всією повагою , гравітаційно силова кібернетика має шанс у освоєні Сонячної Системи і це присутнє лише в Уераїні. З повагою Юрій Шиманський.
At this time we don’t have a reactor to use helium three.also helium three is much harder to fuse Than Deuterium and tritium, but if we did have a reactor that could use helium three the moon would be an ideal place to harvest it.
Space is already full of radiation, and neutrons are moving/scttering, meaning they will dissipate with time. Isn't fear of fission in space unneccessary?
It is less of a danger, yes. The concern is when wanting to use the mighty energy of the atom for surface liftoff, in the case of accidents in orbit, and a runaway reactor damaging to destroying a vessel. Fusion would solve these issues.
It is a fiction that Fusion does not produce radiation as in Neutrons. It does. Fusion stops producing Neutrons when the reaction is turned off. Unfortunately the reaction has to be on to lift off from the surface. We should be weary of using either Fission or Fusion on the surface of a planet. What would work is to separately lift the fusion and/ or fission engine into orbit whilst doing the same with the rocket via normal rocket fuel. The Twain should then be mated together in space at a safe enough distance from the planet. From then on, the Nuclear powered engines do the propulsion. A reverse process could be used if a rocket ship is to be landed, else shuttles could be landed as in Star-Trek.
@@asteronx Is it possible to use bi type of fuel, chemical for lift-off and the atomic for the rest, to lower the risk of the rocket exploding into the sky, couldn't they use an automated disataching container for the atomic to land saftely if there was an inductor that the rocket will explode?
As silly as most will say- I believe the (theoretical) plans have already been laid out. We have to either find- or develop- a substance that can come into contact with antimatter without damage. If we can think it- we can do it. A "Warp Drive" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive is simply two tanks, one Deuterium, the other anti-Deuterium (an electromagnetic bottle) and using electromagnetic piping (Waveguide Conduits) the two are accelerated and collided together, inside this substance (Dilithium Crystal) forming a tuned plasma equal to Terra Joules of electricity- that is then used to energize a series of specially produced magnets. As the frequency of the coupling and decoupling of the magnetic fields is increased- space is opened in front, and pinched behind you. The "exhaust" of this reaction is Neutrinos and ionized vapors of the surrounding gasses in your relative space. The simpler, less powerful propulsion method is called "Impulse". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_drive . How many things we take for granted in our 2018 daily lives- were science fiction, or not even imagined yet- 50 years ago? 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago? The movie Back to the Future is a Prime example: How did the simple Folk of 1955 react to a man in a N.B.C. suit stepping out of a DeLorean? His Down vest was thought of as a Life Preserver. His Walkman with Eddie Van Halen was an alien device. Iconic, funny movie- yes, but think about it.
Hydrogen boron in a compressive magnetic field will work fine. X-rays can be captured for powering the ship. You need high gain materials to increase magnetic gauss for higher rates of compression. High gain materials can be achieved with payload orbits through Jupiters magnetic field.
Im a bit confused here, so does ultra-dense deuterium exist? Holmlid claims it to exist but it can't be created consistently or is it too expensive to create? What is the constraint in us using ultra-dense deuterium?
Then you ask. "Was there a ship there a moment ago?" Joking aside, it's a legitimate concern that has many answers. For one, you make it on the spot--no need to store it. Fellow scientists have already placed a tiny amount in a special tube before being driven it around in a truck. You heard correctly, driven it around in a truck. Everything was of course fine.
Even if a workable design and all components were presented today, NASA would require 15 years of testing and proof, at a minimum, before they'd even allow the first launch.
Perhaps deuterium can be converted into metallic non-Rydberg deuterium more easily than hydrogen into metallic hydrogen? Perhaps an alternative very-high-temperature superconductor?
Not to the end yet but seriously hope u went farther than title. If darpas light version of em drive works....rapid single stage to anywhere? Idk why nasa doesn't just edit the part config file 🤣
0.02 percent neutrons is still a LOT of neutrons, considering the scale. I would't feel safe with a proton/boron reactor in my house/car/ship without a massive shield.
Best estimates are 10% the speed of light, still too slow for practical, effective or efficient manned interstellar space travel though. At 10% the speed of light, it would still take about 43 years to reach the closest star system to us (Alpha Centari at 4.3ly distance), a 25yo astronaut would be 68yo upon arrival (well actually they'd only be about 64yo upon arrival and would have only experienced 39 years of travel time because of time dilation). Keep in mind that the human body can not survive more than 1g of acceleration/deceleration for any extended period of time, so for every 1% of the speed of light you accelerate/decelerate (at 1g) would take about a week. 10% the speed of light would take about 10 weeks to accelerate to or decelerate from, and forget about any sudden course corrections/changes, course corrections/changes would take weeks to initiate and perform.
If you really dive into this type of propulsion in reality it is much easier to take some time and work out the actual gravity control drive rather than these monstrous and dangerous type of practical transportation. On the other hand it is quite understandable why the current state of affairs of the modern economy in this field has not let this type of technology for an actual applications.
Herberti Pedroso in asteronx's defense the bussard ramjet was revealed to actually slow down starships as opposed to speeding them up because the hydrogen in the interstellar medium slows down anything that impacts it. And asteronx made it clear that the fusion engine designs he lists are designed for earth to space launches and not for space travel exclusively.
Great stuff. I did not know about ultradense deuterium.
Precisely, this type of information is important & needs to be shared. Who knows, such information just might make the difference. By the way, Atomic Rockets has an article on this: www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/slowerlight.php#udd, and: www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2018/01/18/southern-utah-scientist-studying-potentially-most-dense-material-our-solar-system/1044139001/
(probably what makes up the core of a Star)
I does not exist in the real world you morons.
Great stuff. I did not know about ultradense deuterium.
AKA Unobtainium.
@Darren Munsell I'm trying to envisage a mechanism, however absurd, that will compress a liquid under any kind of normal conditions (i.e. reduce its volume but not mass) and it isn't working for me. I remain skeptical.
Going to have to disagree with some points here.
Ion engines have a far higher specific impulse than any proposed nuclear-thermal rockets. Yes, their thrust is low, but continuous acceleration over several months can get you to staggeringly high velocities, even at low thrust. Using solar or nuclear electric power, these systems can obtain far greater maximum speeds.
Fission is not inherently "dangerous and unstable". Please stop spreading these irrational fears. Particularly when you are comparing it to pulsed fusion bomb propulsion. Even when accounting for the very small number of nuclear accidents (typically occurring in significantly outdated reactors) fission as a whole is the cleanest and safest method of power generation we have available. The newest generations of nuclear reactors are being designed to be passively stable, and thorium-based fuel cycles virtually eliminate nuclear waste production.
I know it's 8 months too late, but thank you.
Too many people, even well educated, tend to view nuclear fission as dangerous beyond rational thinking. It is dangerous, but well within the capacities of modern society to harness and control. Even the long lived waste is overly feared, when a simple repository could be used (like Yucca mountain was going to be), to protect the environment.
Cheap, clean, dependable energy would have solved a dozen problems that are seemingly impractical at the moment. Now we have to either wait for nuclear research and policy to catch up, wait for another country to solve it and adopt it ourselves, or wait for a new source, like OTEC or Fusion.
@@treasurehunter3744
Not to mention that that *waste* is still a power source.
AstronX, when i was young i loved atomic rockets, you reawakened the passion for this form of engineering and nuclear science.
Y una cosa asteronx porque tanto odio al proyecto orion te pasaste todo el video juzgandolo
Cool, came here after watching The Expanse. I wondered if fusion drives were even possible, looks like they are!
Fusion drives definitely, but something as efficient as the Epstein Drive in the Expanse are almost as unlikely as FTL
What a great video! I've learned more in the past 1/2 hour than I had in a whole year.
Be a real scientist...Always confirm what somebody teaches you and Keats confirm what you THINK you know!🤔
Always confirm what someone else tells or teaches you....Always confirm what you THINK you know or what you THINK you have learned. 🤔
The Ultimata.
I came here after watching The Expanse :)
Proton boron fusion and ultradense deuterium seem to show the greatest potential for future space engines. Much more economical than chemical propulsion fuels. Another great video.
We use a dual stage fission fusion reactor to power our warp field generator. Which was successfully tested on december 18 2020. Private companies are making leaps and bounds and new discoveries that are decades ahead of everyone else. We also successfully tested an antimatter reactor in August 2018. Our more powerful ion drive sent the first prototype craft in to orbit and was successfully recovered after orbiting the earth 3 times. This occurred in september of 2019.
I'm so glad I came across this gem of a video. Serious investment into the push for space will hopefully gain the pace it should previously have done. The rest of us need to show those wanting to stay locked to the ground what it's like to fly. It's time to really explore our home.
AsteronX. Your nuclear fusion rocket video was spot-on and very well thought out. The only thing that would make this topic more complete is a second video that explains fusion as a power source for alternative space launch systems. Systems like mass drivers, orbital rings, space towers/elevators, skyhooks, loftstrom loops, and laser-driven ground-to space launches.
Good idea, thank you. We'll look into it!
AsteronX Isaac Arthur has excellent videos on his channel about these launch systems. I highly recommend you check them out first. They are part of his "upward bound" series. You can find it under his playlists.
Thanks for the suggestion, we've watched a few of his videos, and we will certainly check out his videos first, once when we get to that point. But as you know, we have much to do.
AsteronX take your time.
So much information in one video. Thanks.
I honestly believe that we should not mess with any type of mass production or use of antimatter. We should have an outpost well away outside of any planetary orbit that would be a "production facility" for antimatter. Its just too damn dangerous to have anywhere near a planet in case of an accident. Having kilograms of stored antimatter at a production or storage area near any planetary body just doesn't seem like a good idea.
Thats the real reason nasa wants to go back to the moon first, for that helium 3. lol
Aside from the fact that one first needs a major regolith processing infrastructure to get it ( it's spread shallow and thinly across the entire surface, and mining is not what NASA does), It doesn't mean much until there are practical (not just maybe barely breakeven research devices) reactors that can use it.
Otherwise, it's like going to the trouble and expense of refining and stockpiling gasoline in, say, 1880. Yes, there might be a major use for it in a few decades, but...
Its would be easier to synthesize helium 3, by bombarding lithium with neutron, but the process take a lot of time for the lithium to decay into helium 3, around 12 years
@@stardolphin2 However when you consider regolith is a good source for building materials on the moon Elon Musk may be the first to harvest helium 3 as a product of building on the moon.
@@johnunderwood-hp8rj You have to process at least 150 tonnes of regolith to obtain one gram of helium 3. That calls for a serious infrastructure that yon'e not going to invest in without a known, equally serious market. Like I said, though the total quantity on the Mon is large, it's spread pretty thin.
Using a few tonnes here and there as radiation-protection structure, if you bothered to try to get He3 from it at all, won't mean much.
@@stardolphin2 It's a side venture and not your main focus. I'm amazed they want to use a 3D printer for structures made of regolith. Why not just put people out there with wheel barrows and a hoe and let them mix it by hand the way most one person operations mix concrete. It's worked for a couple of thousand years. I don't see why it wouldn't work on the moon.
Interplanetary nuclear fusion rockets. Badass.
Hey, look in to Focus Fusion. They are on the verge of conducting the experiments, with their new reactor and proton boron fuel, that in theory should break even.
I think it
's probably more productive to concentrate on what we might actually be able to do in the next one hundred years! Fusion and anti-mater might well never happen, so it is of little use to dwell much on them.
Meanwhile Orion is stronger than all other proposals, and 1960s tech.
I had the privilege of hearing Dr. forward speak twice at two conferences. In my opinion he was a great man. I learned much from him.
I find it very hard to believe that the impulse from nuclear blast could ever be 'smoothed out' enough to be practical for manned spacecraft!
Mechanical shock absorbers. They knew very well how things could work and nobody from NASA or the USAF or DARPA or DoE or General Atomics said otherwise.
Ion propulsion providing the same thrust as your breath...That was priceless.
Nice
I enjoy your channel and the look into the not so distant future. Great content...thank you!
Excelent video. Just the information I was searching for. Thanks
We're about to publish another video about four (AsteronX) in-house design concepts as well as two preexisting engine. They are: fusion, fusion-annihilation, plasma and advanced electric.
Going to offer this as more of a question than a valid assertion, as I know so little about this stuff. I hope I get some responses. It seems to me the most "ready" type right now is an updated ORION, propelled by nukes. Building it in space will require SpaceX starship- like payload capabilities, and a cis lunar transport system in place. I see two advantages; you could build a heavy, safe ship for interplanetary travel, with full re-usability. As well, you needn't worry about heavy shielding for the crew/passengers and monstrous radiators for an internal nuclear power plant. This is because the propulsion is from an EXTERNAL source and the pusher plate will shield the humans inside. As for the two major drawbacks, if u park the ORION and launch it from a "safe" position (very high lunar orbit, or the lunar L2 point?) then the radioactive "wake" becomes much less of an issue. There are already dangerous levels (to humans) of radiation in space, especially beyond low earth orbit. Secondly, why is it necessary to have nukes going off for the whole journey? Couldn't you do "daily" thrusting to get the initial delta V , and then spin the ship for artificial gravity. Repeat this daily as needed/desired. It would minimize any periods of discomfort during the "boom boom" of acceleration.
The Orion could have smaller chemical engine ships that load cargo onto it for inter-planetary travel
This channel deserves way more recognition! How could such a golden channel be so underrated? A channel like this should have at least a million subs. Thank you so much for making these inspiring videos. Never stop making them :)
An Atomic Rocket w/water as propellant, was suggested in the 1950's movie 'Destination Moon'. A very excellent movie.
Orion would be horrible to electronics, the EMF created by each explosion on the pusher plate would be devastating.
EMP is only known with very large detonations at the edge of the atmosphere, or things that have ben specifically designed to maximize it. Orion is neither.
update: looks like nasa has been working on lattice confinement fusion and getting somewhere with it.
That is interesting.
Built the long range ship into space, and keep it there. all necessary shielding can be build in, maybe a lead shield would also help against solar winds ? use a shuttle to go to a planet, from the long range hauler.
In this setup, maybe an Ion drive can even work, after an initial bringing up to speed, with another drive ?
To put nuclear fusion into comparison; a ton would power the Human race for 5000 years, plus if there are 33 grams of Deuterium and Tritium per ton water then you can get around 33'000 tons of nuclear fusion per cubic kilometer.
Then there is antimatter; 50x greater than fusion so 50 tons of nuclear fusion would take a ton of room, or a cubic meter.
No, 5000 tons would power the Human race for 1 year. Fusion would be great but it's about as energy dense as nuclear fission. Both nuclear options are millions of times better than chemical fuels of course, which is why we currently have to burn billions of tons of fossil fuels per year to meet our energy needs.
And to make antimatter you need electricity from fusion. Antimatter would be used as a extremely dense battery.
@@sycodeathman
Yes, this really must be updated.
@@afox5319
That is not bad.
Amazing video...very helpful. Thank you!
AsteronX... love your channel. It has always been a dream of mine to travel beyond the confines of Terra. I definitely see us traveling around the solar system and hopefully someone will figure it out soon while I'm still here. As far as interstellar travel, I believe that the life span of humans need to increase greatly or be augmented cybernetically. I for one would love to have my "consciousness" downloaded into an android body ala "Data" or like Captain Kirk in the Star Trek episode "What Little Girls are Made of." We can't really do anything about the distance and time factor in reaching the stars, but we can if we take our own expiration date off the table...
I think thorium reactors would be the best for atomic rockets until we get nuclear fusion which could take a while.
Fusion is actually very near term, as is antimatter.
@@asteronx for given values of 'near'
There were a few surprises for me. I never heard of proton-boron fusion or ultradense deuterium before.
Controlled fusion you do not want exhaust to propel a ship but if you had a drive that could produce thrust without any exhaust
Action and reaction. Even a "gravity drive" expels something--spacetime. The main difference being that some propulsion systems take in as much as they are expelling.
In fact, we are no closer to real working fusion than we were twenty years ago. The best fusion experiments could only get fusion to work for a very small fraction of a second and it takes far more energy than that produced!
actually we got one that lasted 6 and a half minutes
Orion uses atomic bombs. The very much larger ship uses fission/fusion H-bombs.
Can we make helium 3
Thank you it's a good news, the warp will be a reality
I dont think you can go faster than light with fusion
Fusion drive okay for short flights like going to saturn or mars or jupiter.Going over 2 light years not so great unless you want to just go slow all the way.
"Antimatter may be too expensive for electricity generation"
Uhh, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't particle colliders powered by electricity? Thermodynamics says if you're turning power into antimatter you can't generate MORE power by annihilating it in a reactor. (At least, assuming equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created as I think physics mandates)
It can be mined in Planets orbit, in small amounts
If you can create antimatter at slightly more than it's mass times c squared, and when you annihilate it to create double it's mass times c squared, so you got energy out of this thing.
Love the video please make more about space engines
I assume an Orion Nuclear Pusher Plate weighing 500 tons accelerating at 12 meters a second would only need to explode its pulse units for half an hour before reaching 20 km per second. The pulse unit explosions then stop.
No joke, I’ve thought quite a bit of this out prior to watching this video.
Fuckn love project rho
Ultra Dense Deuterium is pretty dense and makes you go delerius because it’s good and plenty on the Earth.
Deuterium is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen. The nucleus of a deuterium atom, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more common protium has no neutron in the nucleus. Deuterium has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in 6420 of hydrogen.
Which of these is the most realistic, near-term solution for a semi-Interstellar (to cover 5000 AU distance in 2 years, say) class spaceship?
Fantastic! I especially enjoyed the direct energy capture via the muons
Thanks for making videos like this. I had no idea that some of the things I thought were science fiction are indeed science fact. Case in point, antimatter. With technologies like that I am left wondering why we still use chemical rockets and gold plated solar powered erector sets for space exploration.
David Adair - built the first Thermal Fusion rocket in 1971 (and flew it) at the age of 17, while in High School
make it so let's go!!!
I did enjoy the show. I would like to recommend that you not be so quick to discount plasma, however. It is not as effective as some of your more high-tech options, but very scalable and very fuel efficient. Even with thrust so low, you can still outrace chemical propelled craft to mars, and even more so to more distant targets. It is incredibly effective in station keeping in small satellites, additionally
why didn't you include the Nerva rocket? I saw a picture of it in the beginning, but nothing else. The NERVA program created and tested actual thermo nuclear rocket engines that were deemed human rated for Mars travel. If you're going into Nuclear rockets, shouldn't you have started with ones that were fully designed and tested rather than purely theoretical ones? Aside from that, i found the rest of the video really good (although work on your speech cadence)
hope so Asteron but the reflective ray and pulse thermal integrity would probably need a spinning disc like transverse too to maintain the timed tuned impulses necessary for the field magnets and hey then some whalefood krill not but really you cant imagine it's eventual inert relevity to the solar massives supposed fusion core differential . Guess the dimentions aren;t the problem with rotational and pulsed particle physics and leaner lighter fuel tanks than needle rocket props can innefficiently strain at, but well thats awesome too and probably still piercing the Max.Whatever craft should absorb such radioactivity with radiomagnetic carbur.out of this world anyhow.
This is reminiscent of Isaac Arthur. Which is certainly not a bad thing.
Isaac Arthur is in another league in my opinion. He doesn't speak to us like we're 5 either..
Redshift
You realize he has a team of people help with his broadcast.
Isaac Arthur is way too much into fantasy and does away with possibilities and practicability and dive full speed into fantasy land that would cost trillions and trillions of dollars that we don't have! The US is already over $22 Trillion in debt and will be much more by the end of Trump's administration and considering that he has already cut government revenues, there will be less for the next administration to work with and to pay down the debts, while the Republic ans use the debt they drove up agsinst this country to cut siocial services and regulatory agencies, and indicated by Trump's previous two budgets, and other government agencies that serve the people in favor of more tax cuts and deregulations for his and GOP investments, as the US sinks ever deeper into debt and fascism! The future of real space travel may well be left to China that is not hampered by American Republicans for ever more tax cuts for their clients and ever increasing military spending and the ever increasing US national debt!
Arthur needs to hire a narrator though. Maybe the guy from 'Frontline', who also does the Dos Equis beer commercials.
Great ideas on how to get there, but I'm still kinda worrying about STOPPING!
Could you make the standard Orion small enough (reduce magazine size for example)
So it could have had a Saturn V as a LEO stage, so the H-bombs could then be used in space with fear of fallout?
MYbe lunch of Far side of moon, so EMPs cant affect satellites?
They designed it for sectional ships, to be lifted into orbit on Saturn-V boosters.
EMP is not an issue with less than 1kt blasts, 5000 miles out.
i liked this video.
This reminds me of KSP interstellar, the technology as well as the animation.
What about improving on the Ion Engine for surface to space like say a Thermion engine? It'll be just like an Ion engine but have the Ion reaction or the plasma stream by some means under high pressure. Would that increase velocity? If so there be no nuclear radiation to worry about.
An ion engine is inherently thrust-limited by its design. However, an "ion-engine" of sorts, that accelerates ionized gas--or more likely, plasma--at high speed by some other means, such as via magnetohydrodynamics, and powered by a fusion reactor, that could work. Unfortunately any means of electric-propulsion requires a rather large amount of energy.
@@asteronx Is it posable to build a magnetohydrodynamics in an Nozzle Actuator configuration? thumbs.gfycat.com/DarlingAgileCaimanlizard-size_restricted.gif Ultimately for anything cool in science to work the key is generation the power to make the magic happen.
Here's an idea for interplanetary travel I know most of the stuff is what we know in the hear and now but I'm a outside the box guy. So what about a quango-gravitic drive that uses a super mass klystron array. It would sort of be like the Orion but in the place of volatile nuclear explosions you spit out waves of granitic force pushing you though space. Science fictiony I know but like I say all we need is a big enough power sources.... and to know the inns and outs of quantum mechanics. Its a long shot but hey when your building spaceships mite as well aim for the stars.
We are kinda beyond that. We don't need more efficient engines to get of earth. We can justsend two rockets that assemble into an interplanetary/interstellar rocket in space.
Mabey you should look into the Nassikas thruster.
Fantastic documentary. Hard to find good things to watch on CZcams. When talking about the first rocket, what is the music in the background with the female singer and piano?
What shits me is that we could be using this right now to colonise the solar system.
No propulsion is good enough for interstellar travel, it follows that from the formulas that E = mc2, i.e. in order to accelerate one kg of matter to light, 1 kg is needed to convert into energy. So rather you have to find some way to collect energy along the way ...
It does not necessarily have greater propulsive delta V than Orion. It depends on how the Orion is designed. They designed some with 100+km/sec delta V.
Orion is also 1960s technology relying on well-known mechanics of getting the energy out.
Theodore Taylor, atomic weapons designer and designer of project Orion said that even on an ambitious interplanetary mission involving thousands of detonations, erosion of the pusher plate (just plain steel) can be kept absent. He said there are any number of ways we can keep heat and radiation from eating into it.
Only the really huge Orion ships used fusion (2-stage bombs). The 10 and 20 meter ships as depicted all used far less than 1kt.
That Orion requires shock absorbers is not a disadvantage. It's just the way it is.
The bomb blast is at a distance from the pusher plate. Neutron absorbtion is not a big problem.
Orion is not only suited for carrying lots into orbit. We can do that anyway, with chemical rockets but they are not good for travel around the Solar system. That is what Orion is good for.
Nothing else is "on the table" like Orion. Nothing else is as close to coming off the drawing board, and is as good.
Freeman Dyson worked on seeing how big an Orion could be made. His "Super" makes a lousy slow starship, but if .15C is your ship's delta-V, that makes a huge hotel liner ship that covers 100 AU in 17 days at mid-course cruise speed. That opens up the Kuiper belt and the Oort halo.
And the hardest technical problems for Orion are how to toss a keg aft at a few hundred m/sec every once in a while (hour+ for the "super), and how to coat the pusher plate with a grease-mist in between pulses.
The mini-mag problem could be solved implementing superconductors. In void is easier to preserv low temps
To build a sun on the Earth? The elusive quest for fusion.
..."and fusion energy, which is confidently expected within the next few decades." --Carl Sagan, 1980. But today, it is expected within the next few decades. :)
My generation was cheated out of this future. Go Space X and Blue Origin! Make it happen.
We have learned far more about the planets and the universe than ever before. If more had been thrown away on maned flights, we would have less money for real exploration, and thus know far less about the universe we live in, because manned flights are so, so expensive. Manned flights are not real exploration but very expensive show boating!!
nasa
It seems like the end of the Cold War was the end of progress in space travel. Or, publicly disclosed space travel, anyway.
NO IT WAS FUCKIN CONGRESS FAULT THEY CUT NASA FUNDING
Great Work ♻
Im up all night to put these reports out.ASAP
regarding the antimatter, it really freaks me out. this is bloody difficult to contain. and if this thing happens to escape...
It could be created in situ by a fusion reactor in small quantities if it was only needed for brief moments in the plasma... plasma in like a tokamak is already energetic enough to destroy the vacuum chamber walls if it gets out of control so for something to be released control issues would have to be licked already.
Now an antimatter cascade reactor on the other hand... that scares the shit out of me because if something like that got out of hand couldn't it like rip a planet in half before we knew what was happening? I think cascades were hinted at in this video but they are pretty theoretical atm
Oh great, another science fiction video!
Lol’d
8:15 boron-10 would be a reasonable, cheap and relatively abundant (19.9% of natural boron) fusion fuel because only about 2% of its nuclear fusion reactions are neutronic. In space, that's much less of an issue (still wouldn't want to thrust out of Earth's atmosphere on boron-10 fuel because that 3% of the reactions that are neutronic also create tritium, which tends to screw up the DNA of living things through its own radiation).
Дуже вражає своєю постановкою.. .. тільки з всією повагою , гравітаційно силова кібернетика має шанс у освоєні Сонячної Системи і це присутнє лише в Уераїні. З повагою Юрій Шиманський.
At this time we don’t have a reactor to use helium three.also helium three is much harder to fuse Than Deuterium and tritium, but if we did have a reactor that could use helium three the moon would be an ideal place to harvest it.
At 12:46 you put up something stating "...only 0.2% of the total energy output..." not 2%. Don't mean to nitpick.
There is literally text at the bottom of the screen explaining the mistake.
This is not fusion energy, this is rapid acceleration of nuclear FISSION. Fusion is the fusing of atoms and fission is the splitting of atoms
It was not a fusion engine that was proposed for Orion.
Space is already full of radiation, and neutrons are moving/scttering, meaning they will dissipate with time. Isn't fear of fission in space unneccessary?
It is less of a danger, yes. The concern is when wanting to use the mighty energy of the atom for surface liftoff, in the case of accidents in orbit, and a runaway reactor damaging to destroying a vessel. Fusion would solve these issues.
It is a fiction that Fusion does not produce radiation as in Neutrons. It does. Fusion stops producing Neutrons when the reaction is turned off. Unfortunately the reaction has to be on to lift off from the surface. We should be weary of using either Fission or Fusion on the surface of a planet.
What would work is to separately lift the fusion and/ or fission engine into orbit whilst doing the same with the rocket via normal rocket fuel. The Twain should then be mated together in space at a safe enough distance from the planet. From then on, the Nuclear powered engines do the propulsion. A reverse process could be used if a rocket ship is to be landed, else shuttles could be landed as in Star-Trek.
@@asteronx Is it possible to use bi type of fuel, chemical for lift-off and the atomic for the rest, to lower the risk of the rocket exploding into the sky, couldn't they use an automated disataching container for the atomic to land saftely if there was an inductor that the rocket will explode?
As silly as most will say- I believe the (theoretical) plans have already been laid out. We have to either find- or develop- a substance that can come into contact with antimatter without damage. If we can think it- we can do it. A "Warp Drive" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive is simply two tanks, one Deuterium, the other anti-Deuterium (an electromagnetic bottle) and using electromagnetic piping (Waveguide Conduits) the two are accelerated and collided together, inside this substance (Dilithium Crystal) forming a tuned plasma equal to Terra Joules of electricity- that is then used to energize a series of specially produced magnets. As the frequency of the coupling and decoupling of the magnetic fields is increased- space is opened in front, and pinched behind you. The "exhaust" of this reaction is Neutrinos and ionized vapors of the surrounding gasses in your relative space. The simpler, less powerful propulsion method is called "Impulse". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_drive . How many things we take for granted in our 2018 daily lives- were science fiction, or not even imagined yet- 50 years ago? 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago? The movie Back to the Future is a Prime example: How did the simple Folk of 1955 react to a man in a N.B.C. suit stepping out of a DeLorean? His Down vest was thought of as a Life Preserver. His Walkman with Eddie Van Halen was an alien device. Iconic, funny movie- yes, but think about it.
Ultra-Dense Deuterium Fusion is definitely something to follow up on.
Hydrogen boron in a compressive magnetic field will work fine. X-rays can be captured for powering the ship. You need high gain materials to increase magnetic gauss for higher rates of compression. High gain materials can be achieved with payload orbits through Jupiters magnetic field.
Im a bit confused here, so does ultra-dense deuterium exist? Holmlid claims it to exist but it can't be created consistently or is it too expensive to create? What is the constraint in us using ultra-dense deuterium?
what about using normal rocket trust as the collusion force instead of multiple gammaglimt, or electromagnetic coils stamps
if greed wasnt in the hearts of us humans we possibly would be passed this point and onto antimatter
well, about the antimatter, what if the containment fails?
Then you ask. "Was there a ship there a moment ago?" Joking aside, it's a legitimate concern that has many answers. For one, you make it on the spot--no need to store it. Fellow scientists have already placed a tiny amount in a special tube before being driven it around in a truck. You heard correctly, driven it around in a truck. Everything was of course fine.
Even if a workable design and all components were presented today, NASA would require 15 years of testing and proof, at a minimum, before they'd even allow the first launch.
NuCLEAR ... how hard it is ? :)
I thought half of these concepts were science fiction. Now I find out they're all real ideas like the sea dragon.
Can we start by getting photos of Earth from space please
They did in the early 1960s.
Just use Tylium. Simple and easy.
Perhaps deuterium can be converted into metallic non-Rydberg deuterium more easily than hydrogen into metallic hydrogen? Perhaps an alternative very-high-temperature superconductor?
How about a nuclear salt water rocket as a ....vengeance weapon
You stated two percent (2%) but had showing point two percent (,2%)
The on screen text is correct, .2%.
I thought that said fission and I did a double take when I saw it was fusion lmao
Excluding "Faster Then The Speed light. He said it with pure happiness. What a myth. Welcome to the World Electrical fusion propulsion.
Not to the end yet but seriously hope u went farther than title. If darpas light version of em drive works....rapid single stage to anywhere? Idk why nasa doesn't just edit the part config file 🤣
"rapid single stage to anywhere" This statement was in reference to the potential of such drive(s).
0.02 percent neutrons is still a LOT of neutrons, considering the scale. I would't feel safe with a proton/boron reactor in my house/car/ship without a massive shield.
Build the ship in space, and keep it there... no weight issues..
What speeds could these rockets achieve?
Perhaps a few percent of the speed of light before you would need to decelerate or until the propellant ran out.
Best estimates are 10% the speed of light, still too slow for practical, effective or efficient manned interstellar space travel though. At 10% the speed of light, it would still take about 43 years to reach the closest star system to us (Alpha Centari at 4.3ly distance), a 25yo astronaut would be 68yo upon arrival (well actually they'd only be about 64yo upon arrival and would have only experienced 39 years of travel time because of time dilation).
Keep in mind that the human body can not survive more than 1g of acceleration/deceleration for any extended period of time, so for every 1% of the speed of light you accelerate/decelerate (at 1g) would take about a week. 10% the speed of light would take about 10 weeks to accelerate to or decelerate from, and forget about any sudden course corrections/changes, course corrections/changes would take weeks to initiate and perform.
Maximum speed possible: ZERO because these ideas DO NOT WORK.
@@asteronx so, Ludicrous speed in other words! :D
@@ronschlorff7089 Sure, but not quite "going-plaid" ;)
If you really dive into this type of propulsion in reality it is much easier to take some time and work out the actual gravity control drive rather than these monstrous and dangerous type of practical transportation. On the other hand it is quite understandable why the current state of affairs of the modern economy in this field has not let this type of technology for an actual applications.
If you create/negate or control gravity, then you don't need ships or planets or Suns. You're gods with all of space/time to play with.
bring it on
Can the nuclear saltwater rocket designed by Robert Zubrin be modified to be a fission catalyzed fusion rocket?
Will nuclear fusion bombs be used as propolsion???
In very big Orion ships.
The Bussard ramjet was not considered for the list?
Herberti Pedroso in asteronx's defense the bussard ramjet was revealed to actually slow down starships as opposed to speeding them up because the hydrogen in the interstellar medium slows down anything that impacts it. And asteronx made it clear that the fusion engine designs he lists are designed for earth to space launches and not for space travel exclusively.
but it would still be very useful for slowing down interstellar spacecraft