Faster Than Light Travel, Theories.

[Nimbian]

Alastair Reynolds?
No I don't think I have. Most of the SF reading I did was pre 2002 when I lived within walking distance to the Public Library, and had money to buy books, new and used. I'll have to look up his works thou.

I'm not saying they couldn't fix damage to the solar sail. but the more mass you bring the slower over all acceleration it will have, or the larger sail you'll need, or a larger/more powerful Laser projector at the origin star. (assuming you were thinking about that method,and not another system that I'm currently unaware of)

Also detecting things by Heat and Mass, is fine before the speed of light, but the name of the thread is FTL not STL :) I was just pointing out difficulties if applied to an FTL drive.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Alastair Reynolds?
No I don't think I have. Most of the SF reading I did was pre 2002 when I lived within walking distance to the Public Library, and had money to buy books, new and used. I'll have to look up his works thou.

He's very good for hard SF space opera.

I'm not saying they couldn't fix damage to the solar sail.

(Laser sail) The idea is that they are disposable, fixing them is pointless.

but the more mass you bring the slower over all acceleration it will have, or the larger sail you'll need, or a larger/more powerful Laser projector at the origin star. (assuming you were thinking about that method,and not another system that I'm currently unaware of)

I was talking about projecting the laser sails ahead of a craft to protect it from impacts at high fractions of the speed of light. Although it could perhaps also work for multiple starwisps in a line, perhaps each one transparent to the light that the next ones are pushed by (though that is probably impossible).

Also detecting things by Heat and Mass, is fine before the speed of light, but the name of the thread is FTL not STL :) I was just pointing out difficulties if applied to an FTL drive.

Mostly it's not a problem for FTL in SF because most involves taking short cuts, either by jumping point to point or using a wormhole or entering some form of hyperspace. Even things like warp drive tend to include technobabble about them warping the space around them to bend objects out of their path until they have past.

 

[Nimbian]

(Laser sail) The idea is that they are disposable, fixing them is pointless.

Repair would not be pointless. How would the ship manage deceleration once it reaches it Travel Midpoint? The more damage the sail takes the sooner they have to start decelerating, with further damage complicating matters further.

Another problem thou easily managed would be damage causing sails to "Pull" in a direction that isn't the intended course. Easily corrected since it would be a near trivial task to change the center of mass, the ships location, by shortening and lengthening tethers and thus compensating for sail loss

I was talking about projecting the laser sails ahead of a craft to protect it from impacts at high fractions of the speed of light. Although it could perhaps also work for multiple starwisps in a line, perhaps each one transparent to the light that the next ones are pushed by (though that is probably impossible).

A Stacked Laser Sail array would be possible but would still be vulnerable to above listed problems.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Repair would not be pointless.

I think you misunderstand. The sail is not used for propulsion, it is a shield deployed ahead of the craft to hit objects in the way to either deflect, destroy or "slow them down" to protect the craft which is traveling at near C.

 

[Nimbian]

Ah well that would be a different concept altogether, and altogether more plausible

 

[Nimbian]

Although it occurred to me that if the ship was the source of the Laser for the laser "sails" Would this not slow the ship down?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Although it occurred to me that if the ship was the source of the Laser for the laser "sails" Would this not slow the ship down?

Minutely; photon rockets are one of the worst forms in terms of thrust and the sails could be incredibly light.

Also it wouldn't necessarily have to keep it up. Throwing in some massive handwavium and magicking up a rocket capable of getting to near C without more fuel than the mass of the galaxy for most of the acceleration it's going slow enough to detect and avoid anything in the way. Once it starts getting up to speed it can push some sail shields ahead but once it reaches cruising speed it might as well turn them off as well.

 

[Nimbian]

Also it wouldn't necessarily have to keep it up. Throwing in some massive handwavium and magicking up a rocket capable of getting to near C without more fuel than the mass of the galaxy for most of the acceleration it's going slow enough to detect and avoid anything in the way.

While your right on the acceleration and being able to dodge things, at least if they are detected sufficiently in advanced, and they likely would be. How does that pertain to FTL?

Also with your permission I'm going to nic some of this conversation for my novel/setting

 

[Ryan_m_b]

While your right on the acceleration and being able to dodge things, at least if they are detected sufficiently in advanced, and they likely would be. How does that pertain to FTL?

Sorry it doesn't lol. We got side tracked onto this near light speed travel discussion because of my post here responding to this post.

Also with your permission I'm going to nic some of this conversation for my novel/setting

By all means