I’ve been digging out the old files for the book project previously described HERE. By far the largest part of the book was/is going to be on propulsion systems. Now, this may be due to the fact that propulsion systems for spacecraft were my schtick, professionally; but I like to think that it’s actually because compared to the propulsion system, everything else (navigation, life support, power, etc.) is pretty secondary. Think of it this way… if tomorrow Microsoft announced that they had developed a perfect closed-system ecology perfect for long duration spaceflight, the general response would be a collective yawn. But if someone tomorrow announced that they figured out how to make a practical and affordable warp drive that could send you to the stars at ten times the speed of light, people around the world would start slapping together starships the day after. To hell with closed ecologies… just pack an assload of canned Spam.
<> Anyway, one of the files I’ve got is the outline of the propulsion system section. My idea was to break all technologies into several technological “eras,” as described in the book’s Introduction:
This book will show how to design and use your Spaceship to a level of detail adequate to avoid the usual pitfalls of most science fiction. To do this, the technology levels are divided into the following types:
1) Now
2) Real Soon
3) On the Horizon
4) Beyond The Horizon
5) Magic
The “Now” class of spaceship is what can actually be built today, with equipment more or less off the shelf, or new designs that make no noticeable advancements on existing equipment. This would include such things as conventional staged, expendable launch vehicles (from small to very large), to space capsules, small spaceplanes, Shuttle-type vehicles, basic inter-orbit tugs, lunar landers and the like. All would be powered by such propulsion systems as chemically fueled rockets – liquid, solid and hybrid; some use of low thrust systems like ion engines and resistojets. These technologies, used wisely, allow for the early commercialization of near-Earth space and the limited manned exploration of the Moon, Mars and some nearby asteroids.
The “Real Soon” class of spaceship would include the use of technologies that have received considerable ground testing, but have not been used. These are devices and technologies that the engineers behind them are virtually certain will work, but will require development. Such spaceships would include fully reusable two stage to orbit launchers, early single stage to orbit vehicles, solar sails, Mars landers, and nuclear thermal rockets such as the NERVA. There are a few materials of note in the “Real Soon” category that would be of interest, such as high temperature ceramics and aerogels. The “Real Soon” designs would, somewhat arbitrarily, encompass those available beginning around 2010-2030, and are the sort of technologies that would allow for true commercialization of near-Earth space (including the Moon and, possibly, near-Earth asteroids) and the manned reconnaissance of the inner solar system.
The “On The Horizon” designs would include the use of technologies that have received only very preliminary testing, and are largely “vaporware.” This class would include such things as airbreathing single stage to orbit vehicles, nuclear pulse vehicles, gas-core nuclear vehicles, laser-propelled launchers, early fusion and antimatter drives. These technologies, which may become available around 2030-2060, would allow for the low-cost commercialization of near-Earth space (including the Moon), tourism to Mars, and the manned exploration and exploitation of the entire solar system, with early missions to the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt.
The “Beyond The Horizon” vehicles would be where things start to get really interesting. These would include the use of technologies that scientists have only the barest preliminary theories of, and engineers are currently very uncertain as to how to even contemplate their use. However, it is in this area where the first interstellar propulsion systems become available. Pure antimatter “photon” drives, Bussard ramjets, advanced pure fusion drives and the like. “Beyond the horizon” technologies have the potential of making the entire solar system accessible as the steam engine made the world accessible. These technologies may become available in the second half of the 21st Century and beyond.
“Magic” technologies are those for which even a theoretical basis is almost totally lacking, or which current theory does not support. Warp drive, hyperdrive, jump drives, wormholes, time travel, gravity generators, zero-point energy generators all fall into this category. They have the potential of making the entire universe accessible. However, with the highly hypothetical nature of these technologies, putting even a vague handwavy date on them is not reasonable. They may be impossible; they may equally be demonstrated within a few years.
———————-
So, here’s the general outline of what the propulsion system was expected to look like:
———————-
Basics:
Spaceship Physics 101
The rocket equation – Read it, Learn it, Live it
Rocket engine design basics
Basic Rocketry
Thrust Vectoring
Jetevator
Jet tabs
Jet Steering
Secondary Liquid Injectant
Rotating Asymmetric Nozzle Extension
Supersonic Splitline
Differential Throttling
Relativistic Travel & Effects
Types of propulsion:
Available Now:
Siege Engines
Steam Rockets
Compressed Gas
Guns
Chemical Rockets
Solid rockets
Liquid rockets
Monopropellant
Bipropellant
Bimodal
Liquid engine design features
Shock diamonds
Hybrid Rockets
Hypersolids
Pressurant vs. pumps
Electrical Propulsion Systems
Ion engines
Hall Effect Thrusters
Resistojets
Arcjets
Turbojets
Ramjets
Balloons
Available Real Soon:
Advanced Chemical Rockets
Expansion-deflection nozzles
Aerospike nozzles
Plug cluster
Dual bell
Hypersolids
Goddard’s Turbo-Prop Rocket
Rotationally Augmented Thrusters
Nuclear Thermal Rockets
Nuclear ramjet
Solar Sails
Solar Photon Thruster
Laser /Microwave Sails
Solar Thermal engines
VASIMR
Rotary Slings
Rotavators
Slingatron
Pulley Drives
On The Horizon systems:
Scramjets
Ducted Rockets and Ejector Ramjets
Liquid Air Cycle Engines
Pulse detonation engines
Gas core nuclear
Nuclear/MHD “Torch”
LANTR
Nuclear lightbulb
Nuclear pulse (Orion)
Nuclear Pulse (Medusa)
Nuclear Pulse (Helios)
Laser Launch
M2P2
MagSail
Railguns
Mass Drivers
Antimatter: Fuel of the Future.
An Antimatter Primer
Antimatter Steam Rocket
Antimatter ramjets
Antimatter turbojets
Anti-Proton Initiated Fusion
Muon Catalyzed Fusion
Pellet Stream Propulsion
Sail Beam
Light Gas Balloon Tunnels
Hydrogen Balloon Ramjet Tunnels
Advanced Artillery
Scramjet Guns
Light Gas Guns
Compressed Gas
Combustion Driven Piston
Falling piston
Underwater gun
Thermal Bed Gun
Nuclear Reactor Gun
Nuclear Bomb Gun
Electric Discharge Gun
Beyond The Horizon:
Launch Loop
Matter/Antimatter Photon Rocket
Bussard Ramjet
Catalytic Ramjet
Ram Augmented Interstellar Rocket
Exotic Chemicals
Metastable Helium
Monatomic Hydrogen
N20 (Nitrogen-Twenty Buckysphere)
Magic:
Alcubierre Warp Drive
Krasnikov Tunnel
Quantum Teleportation
Vacuum Point Energy systems
Wormholes
Artificial Gravity
Inertialess Drives: General
Inertialess Drive: Negative Matter
Inertialess Drives: Dean Drive and others (i.e. BS)
Forwards’ Spin Drive
If I’ve missed anything, and I almost certainly have, feel free to drop a note.
29 Responses to ““S-F Spaceship Design”: Propulsion systems outline”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Looks great to me!
comedy drives? Improbability drive, dark matter, ludacrious speed.. let’s do the time warp again!
Nuclear pulse (Daedalus, fusion)
Nuclear salt-water rocket
For this (and the long-lost “2001 Space Program Status”) I’d pay whatever you’re asking.
> I’d pay whatever you’re asking.
One MILLION dollars.
i need this book,
how much its gona cost ?!
Rick Sternbach was of the opinion that this is the sort of book that Apogee Books publishes.
[…] a followup to THIS and THIS, here’s an example of what might be in the actual book… the section on the […]
Have you ever heard of a nuclear thermal rocket design designated DUMBO? It was described in an issue of Analog ScFi mag in (I think) the mid sixties. DUMBO was an alternative design to NERVA and it was claimed that it would have sufficient thrust to weight to actually be able to launch from earth. The difference from NERVA was that in DUMBO the fuel elements are formed into corregated washers with the channels running radially and stacked between graphite washers. Pressurized hydrogen enters from the outer containment shell, travels across the fissile material, carring the heat, and exits to a central channel which opens to the exhaust nozzel. The claimed advantage of DUMBO was higher thermal efficiency and a lower core wieght
Things missing in the list are:
EM drive: This probably not working, even though the inventor claims that it is and he even has a video to “proof” it. I am very skeptical and is in conflict with known physics, but still worth mentioning as waaay out there.
Mach Lorentz Thruster by March and Woodward. That one is at least not in total conflict with existing physics, though skepticism is still a good idea.
A Fusion engines based on FRC Fusion devices. That would be Tri Alpha and Helion Energy Fusion. Both are very simillar devices and both have promising results.
> Have you ever heard of a nuclear thermal rocket design designated DUMBO?
Of course. I downloaded several reports from (IIRC) the Livermore online publicly accessible library… before the post-9/11 security clampdown locked that database off from the public. I guess Homeland Security was afraid of Jihadists with nuclear-powered SSTO’s.
>before the post-9/11 security clampdown locked that database off from the public>
Ahhh, that explains why I could not find it anymore all of a sudden!
Another case of post 9/11 overreaction…
Where would space elevators fit into your scheme? Also, you might want to consider the possibility that a civilization with the resources of the inner Solar System and a working fusion drive might attempt the colonization of a nearby star.
Scott,
If you write this, you have a publisher.
– Jack
Neat!
Now that it’s in writing, I’ll go for the full 1,500 page version, with the 600 illustrations all requiring $400 licensing. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Scott, we can talk about the illustrations. Depending on the content, we might be able to do some of them for you, for a lot less than 400USD.
We wont have the capacity to do all 600 of them though. That would take us to long. If you are interested I can send you some space and tech related images from our portfolio (the website for our graphics business branch is down at the moment, as we are restructuring our webpresence).
$400 for 600 illos? Heckuva deal!
Oh, you mean $400 each…
I think we can work on that.
– Jack
In all seriousness, I’d want the bok to be reasonably well illustrated… it’d have to be, given the subject matter. But there are less expensive ways to provide general illustrations, I should think, than shovelling over large sums to major corporations. I can and will do a number of line drawings as appropriate, illustrating everything from shock diamonds to orbital mechanics, but it’d be good to have actual “art” as well.
[…] somewhat re-worked the Introduction (previously touched on HERE). Here I blather forth on what the purpose of the book is, how it’s supposed to work and be […]
That meant “less than 400” per illustration of course.
Not 400 USD for all illustrations. We do have a good track record and one of our models (space shuttle) has been used on the NASA website multiple times. Anyway, if you are serious about this, let me know (I suppose you can get the email adress I have provided here, right?).
I think an alternative spaceship design could include the use of aneutronic reactor, as it can thrust a spacecraft directly, providing an ISP of over 1 million seconds.
It is perhaps a bit early to go into negotiations for illustrations, given that there is a lot of work to be done on just getting the book together first.
Sure, I was just under the impression that you cant do the book because you cant afford the illustrations, so I wanted to help by letting you know that you might be able to get them cheaper. 😉
Scott,
You forget my super-suborbital tethered ring ?
But I suppose a whole chapter could be put in on just the 20 or so types of tethers.
And I’m not familiar with the slingatron, but is this when the payload is tethered to a C5A at altitude and speed, pulling a Split-S for the whip crack release ?
Stage trees ? Think of all the bio-engineering that could be done on any of the above ideas. to be done)
I suppose assorted gravity assists should be mentioned, as well as pre-positioned propellants, and Space Mountain (really high pile) or even some of the dynamic compressive structures (fountains).
Cool book idea, do you think it could ever be complete ?
-Gar.
> I suppose assorted gravity assists should be mentioned
And will be. There’ll be a section on orbital dynamics, which will contain gravity assists and such.
> Space Mountain
It’s intended to be mentioned. I recall that General Dynamics (IIRC) did a study on maximum-height artificual structures a long time ago, and came up with Mt. Everest-class heights being possible. It’s somethign I need to try to research some, though.
> do you think it could ever be complete
Yes.
I’m actually writing a sci-fi book involving space travel now – although I’m not terribly far into it. I’d very much liked to get a copy of your book!
Chris Broyhill
> I’m actually writing a sci-fi book involving space travel now
Since it’ll be a good long while yet before my book gets completed, nevermind published, feel free to ask questions, either here or via email.
On the DUMBO design:
You can still access some information at Dr. Dunn’s website:
http://www.dunnspace.com/
which has a link to a downloadable/readable copy of one LNL/Los Almos report.
Scott:
Recently ran across a report on “External Pulsed Plasma Propulsion” (EPPP) or another review of the Orion (putt-putt) drive, no biggie…
However they had a section in there about surface launching of such a vehicle and ways to minimize the public worry over atmospheric detonation of the nuclear pulse units.
They mentioned some fairly advanced possible CHEMICAL explosives which while developed have never been put into service. Mostly do to rather “small” flaws like chemical instablity and auto-detonation over long-term storage :o)
However, they get creative in noting that while these COULD be used in place of the nuclear propellant charges they would be MUCH less efficient and therefor many, many more would be required. Indicating that they might require more than the ship could possibly carry.
There than appears to be a “skip” in the report as the subject switches to “beamed-propulsion” methods and begins explaining how microwave and laser beamed propulsion work and then switches again to return to the high-yeild explosives. IF your problem is STORING them for any length of time, (a more “military” rather than “propulsion” requirement in general) then MAKE them and then don’t STORE them… Instead USE them.
“Beamed-Propulsion?” In this case think of a battery of a half-dozen VERY rapid-fire 5″ guns tracking an Orion type vehicle lofted by a booster rocket…
Every second another shell arrives at an apex point inside a cupped “pusher-plate” and detonates…
And you can provide thousands, hundreds of thousands, none of which the SHIP itself has to carry….
How WOULD you classify that one? Just a “putt-putt” variant?
Randy
Cool stuff!
You may want to break out photon engines from the power source (you have M/AM photon).
There was a paper published recently about using a black hole for a power plant. That might be a good coupled to a photon drive (100% black body radiation)…