Superman-Inspired Skinsuit: Capable of 4,000mph & 500Gees

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In summary, superguy has superspeed as a power and a problem in that he has no indestructible suit like Supes employs. However, some friendly advanced aliens presented him with a skinsuit that can handle speeds (at sea level) of up to 4,000 mph before it heats up, etc, and disintegrates. It can handle up to 500 gees of acceleration also. But, Mr. Brick can also travel at up to better than half light speed (roughly 100,000 miles per second), so he can travel at handy interplanetary speeds.
  • #1
chasrob
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I’m writing some stories about a superhero flying brick; similar to Superman in that he has superspeed as a power. He has a problem in that he has no indestructible suit like Supes employs. However, some friendly advanced aliens presented him with a skinsuit that can handle speeds (at sea level) of up to 4,000 mph before it heats up, etc, and disintegrates. It can handle up to 500 gees of acceleration also. But, Mr. Brick can also travel at up to better than half light speed (roughly 100,000 miles per second), so he can travel at handy interplanetary speeds.

In outer space, should this 500 gee max still hold for his skinsuit, to be reasonably consistent, physically speaking? If so, my calculator says it will take him 20+ days to accelerate to half c. That would put a cramp in his interplanetary escapades, and I'd have to do yet more handwavium. :)
 
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  • #2
chasrob said:
In outer space, should this 500 gee max still hold for his skinsuit, to be reasonably consistent, physically speaking? If so, my calculator says it will take him 20+ days to accelerate to half c. That would put a cramp in his interplanetary escapades, and I'd have to do yet more handwavium. :)

You might want to invest in a better calculator. Can your storyline handle 8-9 hours to ramp up/down ?
 
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  • #3
Why only 500 g's? My hard disk will survive that if it's off. Don't see why a pair of trousers would be less robust.
 
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  • #4
hmmm27 said:
You might want to invest in a better calculator. Can your storyline handle 8-9 hours to ramp up/down ?
You’re right, I’m wrong, my calculator misled me again ;). So that means superguy has traveled around 2.5 billion kilometers when he hits 100,000 miles per sec, correct? That’s almost half-way to Pluto...

Say he wants to get to Mars at that rate; accelerate to half point, de-accelerate. I saw some equations that would calculate his time, given the acceleration and distance, but I can’t locate them now, dammit. You wouldn’t know what those equations are? I can’t seem to be able to Google the right words to describe what I’m looking for.
 
  • #5
Vanadium 50 said:
Why only 500 g's? My hard disk will survive that if it's off. Don't see why a pair of trousers would be less robust.
Good question. Off the top of my head, would 10,000 gees be more reasonable for a skinsuit that can handle 4,000 mph at sea level, you think?
 
  • #6
Seems to me that is a question for the Aliens, assuming they have a head with a "top"...
 
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  • #7
1d kinematic formulae : Sticky post in the Intro Homework forum. Enjoy.

I'd suggest working backwards, though : figure out how much time you want the superhero to spend in transit between various A-to-B's and work out the base figures for acceleration and max speed from that.

Toss in the occasional dust cloud, orbital-debris field, particle storm, or the like for filler : if you hit *anything at all* at 0.6c, you're going to need an advanced alien tailor.
 
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  • #8
hutchphd said:
Seems to me that is a question for the Aliens, assuming they have a head with a "top"...
He goes 4,001 mph in atmosphere, the skinsuit disintegrates and he's left with his birthday suit :). These aliens are not going to give the crypto-earthling any more advanced tech that he can reverse engineer.
 
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  • #9
hmmm27 said:
1d kinematic formulae : Sticky post in the Intro Homework forum. Enjoy.

I'd suggest working backwards, though : figure out how much time you want the superhero to spend in transit between various A-to-B's and work out the base figures for acceleration and max speed from that.

Toss in the occasional dust cloud, orbital-debris field, particle storm, or the like for filler : if you hit *anything at all* at 0.6c, you're going to need an advanced alien tailor.
Thanks. I do know about the SUVAT equations. I just remember, a couple years ago, coming across an equation or set of equations*that gave the best time when given acceleration and distance. Or maybe I mis-remember.

Like in the example above; say Mars is 140 million miles away and superguy starts accelerating at 500 gees. He would go half-way then de-accelerate at 500 gees, correct? In this case, he wouldn't reach anywhere near 100,000 miles a second before having to de-accelerate, right?
*edit: equations derived from SUVATs, I mean
 
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  • #10
Also, 8 or 9 hours of constant acceleration would be pretty boring, eh? :)
 
  • #11
Well, if I plugged in the figures properly to this online calculator , the trip'd take 3½ hours'ish, and turnaround would be at maybe 190million mph.
 
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  • #12
hmmm27 said:
Well, if I plugged in the figures properly to this online calculator , the trip'd take 3½ hours'ish, and turnaround would be at maybe 190million mph.
Super, thanks!
So if Mr. Brick gets a call that the Mars colony is under attack, puts on his skinsuit, accelerates and then de-accelerates at 500 gees, 3 and 1/2 hours later he's on Mars? But the Bugs have already nuked the colony in the meantime. All because he's a prude :).
Edit: With no clothes to encumber him, he can accelerate to almost 100,000 miles per second in a matter of a few nanoseconds.
 
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  • #13
hmmm27 said:
Well, if I plugged in the figures properly to this online calculator , the trip'd take 3½ hours'ish, and turnaround would be at maybe 190million mph.
The turnaround time is non-trivial. That 190 million mph will be in a direction perpendicular to his journey. It won't make his trip shorter. His actual turnaround speed - relative to Earth - is what matters - and it will be zero, no matter how wide or narrow a loop he makes around Mars.

(There's a relevant nautical term called "Way Made Good" that defines the speed you are making relative to your destination(s). In other words, it is only the one-dimensional speed in a straight line between Earth and Mars that matters.
The total trip will be
Getting up to max positive speed at max positive accel +
(Coasting) +
Getting down to zero speed at max negative accel +
Getting up to max negative speed at max negative accel +
(Coasting) +
Getting down to zero speed at max positive accel.
 
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  • #14
DaveC426913 said:
That 190 million mph will be in a direction perpendicular to his journey.

His actual turnaround speed (relative to Earth) will be zero.

(There's a relevant nautical term called "Way Made Good" that defines the speed you are making relative to your destinations. If he loops around Mars,)

The turnaround time is non-trivial. No matter how wide or narrow a loop he makes, he still has to decelerate from his top speed (relative to Earth) down to zero (relative to Earth), and then back up again.

The total trip will be
Getting up to max positive speed at max positive accel +
(Coasting) +
Getting down to zero speed at max negative accel +
Getting up to max negative speed at max negative accel +
(Coasting) +
Getting down to zero speed at max positive accel.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Say the distance to Mars is 225 million kilometers. He'd accelerate half that, 112.5 million. His max velocity (I get from the page) is 75 million miles per hour. No coasting period in this case.
 
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  • #15
chasrob said:
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Say the distance to Mars is 225 million kilometers. He'd accelerate half that, 112.5 million. His max velocity (I get from the page) is 75 million miles per hour. No coasting period.
And don't forget that, as far as pure efficiency goes, there is no reason to stray from a straight line there and back. His most efficient turnaround action is to simply decelerate to zero. "Looping around" only lengthens the journey.
 
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  • #16
DaveC426913 said:
That 190 million mph will be in a direction perpendicular to his journey.
Huh? It's a one-dimensional motion problem.

Accelerate forward until you are halfway there, ~110 million km in the given example, then accelerate backwards. t=sqrt(2s/a) = 6600 seconds for each half of the trip, or about 3.5 hours total to get to Mars.
No need to make this any more complicated.

Top speed will be ta=33,000 km/s or 11% the speed of light.

Put the suit into a sturdy box and you can accelerate much faster.
 
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  • #17
mfb said:
Huh? It's a one-dimensional motion problem.

Accelerate forward until you are halfway there, ~110 million km in the given example, then accelerate backwards. t=sqrt(2s/a) = 6600 seconds for each half of the trip, or about 3.5 hours total to get to Mars.
No need to make this any more complicated.

Top speed will be ta=33,000 km/s or 11% the speed of light.

Put the suit into a sturdy box and you can accelerate much faster.
The box would survive, but would the suit inside?
 
  • #18
Put a pair of trousers flat on the ground, stand on a random place on them. You probably stand on ~50-100 gram of clothing or so with a mass of ~100 kg. The force between trousers and ground is now equal to the force you get at ~1000-2000 g (without you standing on top). Do you risk any damage to the trousers? Probably not - they can withstand much larger forces. That's a random clothing item from your wardrobe. You would expect some alien super-material to be much sturdier.

When Mr. Brick wears the items they are subject to tension, but in a sturdy box you only get compression, which is much easier to handle.
 
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  • #19
mfb said:
Put a pair of trousers flat on the ground, stand on a random place on them. You probably stand on ~50-100 gram of clothing or so with a mass of ~100 kg. The force between trousers and ground is now equal to the force you get at ~1000-2000 g (without you standing on top). Do you risk any damage to the trousers? Probably not - they can withstand much larger forces. That's a random clothing item from your wardrobe. You would expect some alien super-material to be much sturdier.

When Mr. Brick wears the items they are subject to tension, but in a sturdy box you only get compression, which is much easier to handle.
Yeah, you're right. That figure I just snatched out of thin air... 500 gees. Seemed to be reasonable since it's a tremendous force applied over a length of time. Maybe alien super-material could handle tens or hundreds of thousands of gees.
 
  • #20
hmmm27 said:
Well, if I plugged in the figures properly to this online calculator , the trip'd take 3½ hours'ish, and turnaround would be at maybe 190million mph.

mfb said:
Huh? It's a one-dimensional motion problem.
Yes it is.

(Upon rereading, I may have misinterpreted what hmmmm27 meant by "turnaround" - I interpreted that to mean "looping around Mars" - and so went off on that tangent. Mea culpa)
 
  • #21
chasrob said:
Yeah, you're right. That figure I just snatched out of thin air... 500 gees. Seemed to be reasonable since it's a tremendous force applied over a length of time. Maybe alien super-material could handle tens or hundreds of thousands of gees.
BTW, depending on context, 500gees is quite mundane.

A 10kg object, falling 1m onto a hard surface like concrete (~2ms duration), experiences something on the order of 500 gees.
 
  • #22
DaveC426913 said:
(Upon rereading, I may have misinterpreted what hmmmm27 meant by "turnaround" - I interpreted that to mean "looping around Mars" - and so went off on that tangent. Mea culpa)

"turnaround point" as a mis-remembered phrase from an old novel (probably Heinlein, probably fusion-powered rockets), referring to a midpoint attitude reversal at full acceleration.
 
  • #23
hmmm27 said:
"turnaround point" as a mis-remembered phrase from an old novel (probably Heinlein, probably fusion-powered rockets), referring to a midpoint attitude reversal at full acceleration.
Yes, of course.

I glommed onto the idea that it was a round-trip, so I thought of "turnaround" as the loop around Mars, and ran with it. How embarrassing.
 
  • #24
DaveC426913 said:
BTW, depending on context, 500gees is quite mundane.

A 10kg object, falling 1m onto a hard surface like concrete (~2ms duration), experiences something on the order of 500 gees.
How about 500 gees applied over 3.5 hours, as in the above scenario? Cannot be very pleasant.
 
  • #25
DaveC426913 said:
I glommed onto the idea that it was a round-trip, so I thought of "turnaround" as the loop around Mars, and ran with it. How embarrassing.

My fault : "turnaround time" is what it sounds like : the time it takes to refuel and reorient for the next or return leg of a trip.

What's wanted is a term for the midpoint turnover (an otherwise delightful fruity pastry) of a brachistochrone trajectory : Heinlein used the term "skew flip".
Anyways, as far as the suit is concerned : just fold, and store in a convenient orifice during those pesky interplanetary and "through a neutron star" trips.
 
  • #26
chasrob said:
How about 500 gees applied over 3.5 hours, as in the above scenario? Cannot be very pleasant.
I don't think it makes much difference after the first few milliseconds. Besides, he's in a vacuum.
 
  • #27
hmmm27 said:
...
Anyways, as far as the suit is concerned : just fold, and store in a convenient orifice during those pesky interplanetary and "through a neutron star" trips.
Since the aliens are eons advanced tech-wise, I guess I could go with the clothes able to withstand the 50 quadrillion gees the superguy can muster up to get to his "interplanetary speed" of ~100,000 miles per second.
They're capable of much more, but don't trust Mr. Brick with any more of their tech--other than the basic "flying suit" capabilities.
 
  • #28
DaveC426913 said:
I don't think it makes much difference after the first few milliseconds. Besides, he's in a vacuum.
As I understand it, the gees are still there, for 3+ hours. He's invulnerable; the skinsuit ain't, on purpose--by the untrusting aliens (: .
 
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  • #29
The gee force that pants can sustain depends on whether the flyer is using the traditional superman flight stance or if he can use some other stance. You can get the breaking length for some materials from Wikipedia. In the traditional superman flight stance the hem is about a meter from the belt. Since spider silk has a 109 km breaking length in 1g we can assume spider silk pants can handle 109,000g. If he crunches up into the fetal position he can cut down the longest strand experiencing the g-force. If he is accelerating belly first the length will be much shorter unless he has an exceptionally large belly. If your fiber length is 1/3rd then multiply the possible g-force by 3.
 
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  • #30
Spider silk can handle 109,000g? Amazing. So if the superman takes off from Earth orbit in the traditional flight stance, in his spider silk duds, I calculate he will land on Mars little more than 15 minutes later. Thanks.
 
  • #31
chasrob said:
Spider silk can handle 109,000g? Amazing. So if the superman takes off from Earth orbit in the traditional flight stance, in his spider silk duds, I calculate he will land on Mars little more than 15 minutes later. Thanks.
Oops, my bad again. 25-26 minutes travel time.
 
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  • #32
Given Mr. Brick's unexplained abilities and as a long time Superman fan, why bother with decelerating?

Unless you have a pressing plot point midway in the trip such as an alien artifact for Brick, just have your hero zip to Mars. Superman only accelerated as required by the graphics and story lines and rarely bothered decelerating AFAIK. Ka-El simply 'absorbs' his momentum with a superhero landing on his strong legs.

Heinlein describes a "skew-flip" maneuver in "Have Space Suit -- Will Travel" so that his protagonists, Kip and Peewee, can determine they are halfway to Luna and also give the characters something to do during the boring trip. The propulsion system is otherwise not described. Kip Later calculates trip times and distance then velocities and accelerations for the alien flying saucer -- actually shaped as an oblate spheroid according to Peewee -- given a 5 day trip Luna to Pluto to occupy his time while trapped in a dungeon by the Wormfaces, but I digress.

Note: I have not read a Superman comic for many years but I have seen most of the major films and would be amazed if Ka-El now bothers to turn over midway in a trip to decelerate. For skin suits consider coping Flash?
 
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  • #33
Klystron said:
Given Mr. Brick's unexplained abilities and as a long time Superman fan, why bother with decelerating?

Unless you have a pressing plot point midway in the trip such as an alien artifact for Brick, just have your hero zip to Mars. Superman only accelerated as required by the graphics and story lines and rarely bothered decelerating AFAIK. Ka-El simply 'absorbs' his momentum with a superhero landing on his strong legs.

Heinlein describes a "skew-flip" maneuver in "Have Space Suit -- Will Travel" so that his protagonists, Kip and Peewee, can determine they are halfway to Luna and also give the characters something to do during the boring trip. The propulsion system is otherwise not described. Kip Later calculates trip times and distance then velocities and accelerations for the alien flying saucer -- actually shaped as an oblate spheroid according to Peewee -- given a 5 day trip Luna to Pluto to occupy his time while trapped in a dungeon by the Wormfaces, but I digress.

Note: I have not read a Superman comic for many years but I have seen most of the major films and would be amazed if Ka-El now bothers to turn over midway in a trip to decelerate. For skin suits consider coping Flash?
According to the SUVAT equations, if Mr. Brick comes to a stop in one second (from 99,555 miles per second), his spider silk suit will suffer 16 million and change gees. He can absorb that, being invulnerable, but the suit will shred and the Martians will charge him with indecent exposure. :) The aliens also outfitted the suit with an altimeter, speedometer (so he wouldn’t trash the suit going faster than 4,000 mph in atmosphere), and a timer, which comes in handy when he wants to know when to coast or de-accelerate during interplanetary ventures. I could just give him an invulnerable outfit like Supes or Flash, but I thought I’d throw in that suit problem to give him another thing to deal with after he’s transformed into a super.

That Heinlein book "Have Space Suit -- Will Travel"? Have to give it a read, sounds very interesting, how he calculates trip times, etc.
 
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1. How does the Superman-Inspired Skinsuit achieve speeds of 4,000mph?

The Superman-Inspired Skinsuit is made from a highly advanced material called aerogel, which is known for its incredibly low density and high strength. This material allows the suit to have minimal air resistance and withstand high speeds without breaking apart. Additionally, the suit is equipped with miniature thrusters that provide propulsion, similar to how a jet engine works.

2. Can the Superman-Inspired Skinsuit really withstand 500Gees?

Yes, the skinsuit is designed to withstand up to 500Gees, which is equivalent to 500 times the force of gravity. This is made possible through the use of a special shock-absorbing gel layer within the suit, which helps distribute and dissipate the force of impact.

3. Is the Superman-Inspired Skinsuit safe for human use?

Yes, the skinsuit has been extensively tested and is deemed safe for human use. It is designed to protect the wearer from extreme speeds and forces, making it ideal for use in high-speed activities such as racing or space exploration.

4. How does the Superman-Inspired Skinsuit compare to other high-speed suits?

The Superman-Inspired Skinsuit is one of the most advanced high-speed suits currently available. Its unique aerogel material and shock-absorbing gel layer give it an edge over other suits in terms of speed and safety. Additionally, its design is inspired by the iconic superhero, making it a popular choice among fans.

5. Can the Superman-Inspired Skinsuit be used for everyday activities?

While the skinsuit is primarily designed for high-speed and high-impact activities, it can also be used for everyday wear. However, due to its advanced technology and materials, it may be more expensive and less comfortable than traditional clothing options.

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