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Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

projecthyperion.org

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Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#311

Post by m4rtink »

NoGravitas wrote: post #264
andrewla wrote: post #256

On this thread people are pointing out many potential problems with all of these solutions. I think all have an element of validity but in the end a much bigger problem is the complete unknowns. The good news is that there is a system for measuring the effectiveness of the potential solutions. That system is called "reality". If humanity builds a single "ark" then it is very likely to fail. The trick is that we need…

The generation ship in KSR's "Aurora" failed due to unknown unknowns. I'd very much hate to have lived on it as it did, and I would be unwilling to condemn tens or hundreds of thousands of people to the same fate as an experiment.

The whole oh-no-prions from hell was kinda unconvincing, as well as choosing to go back to Sol instead of just building up living space via artificial habitats in the target solar system.

If you can refuel a fucking interstellar ark in field conditions, you totally can also keep it running and expand it and your living space using local resources instead.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#312

Post by m4rtink »

andrewla wrote: post #295
NoGravitas wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The generation ship in KSR's "Aurora" failed due to unknown unknowns. I'd very much hate to have lived on it as it did, and I would be unwilling to condemn tens or hundreds of thousands of people to the same fate as an experiment.

There were numerous ships that attempted to traverse the Atlantic to form colonies in the Americas. Many were lost, or died out, or failed to thrive for unknown unknowns. And many survived and flourished for reasons not even the settlers understood, and which frankly we will probably never understand because the moment has passed. In Aurora society took a one-shot approach. This strikes me as unrealistic; why weren't…

I liked how Earth just went "we will just send more ships, LOL". And the book portrais it like a bad thing. ;-)

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#313

Post by m4rtink »

Edmond wrote: post #75

Anyone enamoured with this type of stuff should watch the movie Aniara. It's a great movie that illustrates what a delusional fantasy interstellar space travel of this form is. I am a big space exploration fan, but beyond our solar system, it's probably best thought of as a fantasy entertainment genre.

Aniara is not a good example - the ship was supposed to do a regular interplanetary flight orogonally before ending up on unplanned interstellar trip to oblivion due to drive failure before they could break to their destination planet (+ some apparent strife in the Solar System at the time, so no one could mount a rescue mission in time).

That is totally something that can happen if you have a high performance interplanetary craft that does trips between planets in weeks - any trajectory is likely hyperbolic and if your drive fails before you brake again & no one can catch up with you in time you are kinda screwed.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#314

Post by dotancohen »

m4rtink wrote: post #237
dotancohen wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that package going to navigate, and then match velocity to dock?

Should be doable with beamed propulsion. Basically give each package a lightsail & you can have it maneuver when illuminated by laser arrays either in the home system or on the interstellar craft itself. The beauty of this setup is that if you are really good at keeping the schedule, this can be all pre-computed. With time slots being allocated beforehand when the laser arrays send beams in a given direction & the pa…

Imagine the mythology that will develop on that general ship about the beamed packages.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#315

Post by teiferer »

jvanderbot wrote: post #239
teiferer wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's entirely reasonable we'd have the will to make it happen "We" are not even able to sustainably inhabit our current planet. We have hundreds of millions starving every day, we have wars in many places, the threat of thermonuclear war looming as strong as ever, and are still using natural resources at an unsustainable rate even though we know that that's the case . Settling on other planets has all these problem…

We do not have hundreds of millions starving every day. And if we did, we don't have a large portion of industrialized/militarized missions starving every day anway. We'd send the best of the best, hand picked, with the best tech we can build. It's fine if you believe we should not go (but I disagree), but the state of the world is not evidence of failure of the mission.

> We do not have hundreds of millions starving every day.

Then maybe it's time you stop being ignorant. It's not even hard to google. Start with the WHO, over 700 million people faced hunger and malnutrition in 2023. [1] And I'm not particularly interested in how you will try to nitpick your way out of that. It's so easy in the west and in upper classes of the developing world to close your eyes to this.

[1] https://www.who.int/news/item/24-07-2024-hunger-numbers-stub...

> And if we did, we don't have a large portion of industrialized/militarized missions starving every day anway. We'd send the best of the best, hand picked, with the best tech we can build.

Initially, sure. But that's not what I was talking about. Eventually you want to build a civilization there, right? Eventually you have millions there. And it's hard to see how you will be able to organize a society in large scale in a way that does not have the problems humankind currently has if you can't even fix that here which compared to all other planets is a nature paradise. Even after a thermonuclear war, earth is easier to live on than any other planet in this solar system. Time to leave your scifi bubble if you believe otherwise.

> It's fine if you believe we should not go (but I disagree), but the state of the world is not evidence of failure of the mission.

The state of the world is evidence of failure of a mission that is much easier than building a civilization on another planet.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#316

Post by fc417fc802 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #279
fc417fc802 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but in a fictional universe we aren't constrained by real world physics. Yet no "hard" takes on artificial gravity come to mind. I assume this is partly because any explanation would be difficult to work into an interesting narrative (unless you consider physics journal articles and mathematical equations interesting) and also because "simulating" the downstream impacts of changes at such a low level of physic…

> Yet no "hard" takes on artificial gravity come to mind. Yeah, I’m just suggesting maybe there just haven’t been any hypothetical speculative physics concepts that could explain artificial gravity. At least with FTL we’ve got wormholes, the Alcubierre drive, zero-point energy, etc. > any explanation would be difficult to work into an interesting narrative With sci-fi people seem to like explanations of FTL well enou…

> it’s much more mundane than other aspects

Is it though? It brings to mind the humorous essay that attempted to extrapolate in a hard sci-fi manner the consequences of the existence of phasers and teleporters in star trek. It seems likely to be a mundane usage which is merely the tip of the iceberg for an absurdly powerful technology.

> the hard speculative physics kind

Apologies if I'm off the mark but just to be clear you don't need speculative real world physics for a "hard" take. All you need is an author dedicated enough to invent his own set of rules and then faithfully "simulate" it. It's just that most authors are lazy and go with speculative real world physics as the base.

At some point I started seeing people conflate hard sci-fi with real world physics and I'm not sure where that came from.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#317

Post by vl »

WithinReason wrote: post #181
amenhotep wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd spend years firing pellets in advance of the voyage, on the same trajectory but moving a little slower than the ship you plan to launch. Time it all so you catch up with the first of them just as you want to start decelerating.

But then the whole project takes thousands instead of hundreds of years

And also it requires extraordinary navigation precision. These launches are going to be spread in time, which means that they don't happen from the same place (all celestial bodies move relative to each other). Which in turn means that when you approach the pellet there is going to be perpendicular velocity component.

Even without taking this into account all systems are going to need active guidance - there is no way you do single burn and end up in the same place in the same time few light years away.

The best schema is probably launching all fuels containers that should be picked up for retro burn at the same time with much higher acceleration (orbital rail gun and then a burner), and with very slightly smaller final speed.

Then on the main craft you do short retro burn to match speed to fuels containers, attach them and do full retro burn for orbital insertion.

Benefit of this schema is that you don't need to accelerate everything slowly using main engine, so your original booster can be way smaller. (Energy-wise it only works if you have stationary means to accelerate high-g-capable payloads, i.e. orbital railgun, in this case you don't have to accelerate extra fuel required for initial burn)

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#318

Post by vl »

thmsths wrote: post #307
gus_massa wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want tri-redundant systems at a least, for everything, and zero gears to keep the rotation of the concentrical shells at the correct speed. My washing mashine self destructed a few times. I don't want to put my children inside one for 400 years.

Your washing machine probably used cheap nylon gears which self destructed. There are windmills older than 400 years old that still operate today despite using gears :)

This is false example - these windmills are actively maintained and repaired, how are you going to replace massive gears or bearings in space? Are you going to bring spare parts with you?

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#319

Post by gus_massa »

thmsths wrote: post #307
gus_massa wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want tri-redundant systems at a least, for everything, and zero gears to keep the rotation of the concentrical shells at the correct speed. My washing mashine self destructed a few times. I don't want to put my children inside one for 400 years.

Your washing machine probably used cheap nylon gears which self destructed. There are windmills older than 400 years old that still operate today despite using gears :)

You mean wood gears like in https://www.alamy.com/gears-of-a-windmill-image245974580.htm... ?

I guess they were replaced a few times during the non harvesting season.

To replace the main gears of a rotating shell in space, you must "turn off" gravity for a week (or month).

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#320

Post by vl »

b112 wrote: post #192
vl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool concept, but some things are just strange: Power provided by toroidal nuclear fusion reactors in the outer shell of the living module, but why do you need such reactors if your primary propulsion is provided by Helium 3 - Deuterium Direct Fusion Drive? If you have direct fusion technology, you don't need toroidal reactors. Rotating inner shells mechanically for 400 years is terrible design, it's much easier just…

Belts and suspenders? These are supposed to be generational ships. Now imagine you need to take the primary drive down for maintenance? What does the moving colony have for power? I'd want tri-redundant systems at a least, for everything.

My point is more narrow: if you have magical "direct fusion" technology (which is used in the main engines, as presentation says), you don't need regular toroidal nuclear fusion reactors, just use multiple redundant "direct fusion reactors". Which in turn are going to be more compact and don't need to be built as huge toruses around main cylinder.
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