![]() The sun uses gravity to keep its matter contained within its core. These fields may be used to assist in containment of materials such as fusion reactor core fuel or perhaps even antimatter. Learning to generate gravity is important for a number of other reasons. The entire mass of the ship would be payload. Since energy is produced by nuclear processes, where E= mc2, the mass required to generate energy, especially massless energy such as gravity particles, is minimal. This means fuelling the ship is much less of a problem than if actual reaction mass had to be replaced at the end of every journey. Still since the process is less than perfectly efficient, the approximation is probably within the realms of the possible.Ī gravity drive spaceship on the other hand could arrive home with essentially the same mass as it left home. This is not quite true since as the rocket throws out reaction mass it becomes lighter and needs less “fuel” to make it travel faster. This adds up to about 40% of the total mass of the spaceship being reaction mass. To come home from somewhere else would then require a repeat acceleration process / deceleration process. It would need to do the repeat same process pointed the other way to decelerate. With conservation of momentum, a spaceship exhausting 10% of its mass at “c” (the speed of light), could only roughly accelerate itself to roughly 0.1c. ![]() The ion drive rocket also still needs a supply of reaction mass.Įrasmus : Let’s do some basic maths. ![]() It could however escape from the sun’s gravity well due to much more gradual gravity slope as compare to getting off the surface of the earth. This type of rocket (essentially an ion drive) could not escape from the earth to earth orbit. Some authors have quoted that typical ion drives can generate about 0.1g of thrust, (about a tenth the acceleration of gravity on earth). While this drive system uses minimal reaction mass compared to a chemical rocket, it really does not generate a lot of thrust. This electrical energy or heat energy may be used to accelerate particles from the spaceship exhaust. Perhaps, the most common drive system “suggested” for galactic travel is some form of “ion drive” with a nuclear power plant generating magnetic fields or heat. It simply weighs too much and delivers too little energy in the long term. ![]() However, we could not possibly carry enough oxygen to allow a chemical reaction to drive a spaceship. This speed of reaction or force generation is critical to reach escape velocity quickly, such as escaping from the Earth to earth orbit. We use chemical rockets because of the speed with which they generate heat or thrust. (This is also known as generating thrust). Rockets throw accelerated mass out the exhaust which pushes the rocket forward. This is fundamentally different from all other drive systems. Rockets : Today TechĮrasmus : Well, the advantage of using gravity is that it is “massless”. Kinkajou : Why do we need gravity drive? I can think of lots of other ways to generate a force or push to make a spaceship move. Erasmus : If the human race ever hopes to escape from this planet, it will need to be able to use gravity to provide a means of propulsion for spaceships. ![]()
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