Tech

An important part of sci-fi space travel will probably just be fantasy


In Poul Anderson Novel 1970 Tau Zero, a spacecraft crew seeks to travel to the star Beta Virginis in hopes of colonizing a new planet. The ship’s propulsion method is a “bussard ramjet,“a practical (albeit hypothetical) means of propulsion that has been proposed by the physicist Robert W. Bussard just a decade earlier. Now, physicists have revisited this unusual mechanism for interstellar travel in a new sheet of paper published in the journal Acta Astronautica, and alas, they found the ramjet as desired. It is feasible from a purely physical point of view, but the technical challenges are currently insurmountable, the authors conclude.

The ram plane is essentially an air “breathing” jet engine. The best analogy to the underlying mechanism is that it exploits the reciprocating motion of the engine to compress air without the need for a compressor, making the ramjet engine lighter and simpler than jet engines. A French inventor named Rene Lorin received a patent in 1913 for the jet aircraft concept (also known as the furnace tube), although he failed to build a viable prototype. exam. Two years later, Albert Fonó proposed a jet propulsion unit to increase the range of projectiles launched from a gun, and he was finally granted a German patent in 1932.

A basic jet has three components: the air intake, the combustion unit, and the nozzle. Hot exhaust gas from fuel combustion flows through the injector. Combustion pressure must be higher than injector outlet pressure to maintain a steady flow, which a jet engine achieves by “butting” outside air into the burner at low speed. front of any powered vehicle. engine. It is not necessary to bring oxygen tanks on board. The downside is that fighter jets can only generate thrust if the vehicle is moving, so they need rocket support to take off. The fighter is therefore most useful as a means of acceleration, such as for jet-powered missiles or to increase the range of shells.

Robert Bussard thinks the concept could be modified to serve as a vehicle for interstellar propulsion. The basic premise is stated in his 1960 article is to collect interstellar protons (ionized hydrogen) using magnetic like a “spoon of ram.” The protons would be compressed until they caused fusion fusion, and the magnetic field would then redirect that energy into the rocket’s exhaust to create thrust. The faster the ship goes, the higher the proton flow and the greater the repulsion.

But then scientists discovered that there is a much lower density of hydrogen in the regions of space beyond our solar system. That’s why, in a 1969 paper, John F. Fishback proposes a possible functional maglev, which takes into account factors such as radiation losses and the heat distribution of interstellar gas.

In particular, Fishback calculated what the cutting speed would be. The authors of this latest paper explain: “The faster the ship, the higher the magnetic field lines that focus them on the fusion reactor. “Stronger School[s] cause higher mechanical stress. “Fishback concluded that an interstellar jet could only continuously accelerate to a certain threshold speed, at which point it would have to throttle again, lest the source of the magnetic field reach a breaking point.

That’s Fishback’s solution tested in this latest paper. “The idea is definitely worth investigating,” co-author Peter Schattschneider said, One Science Fiction author and physicist at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien). “In interstellar space there is very thin gas, mostly hydrogen – about one atom per cubic centimeter. If you collect hydrogen in front of the spacecraft, like in a magnetic funnel, with the With the help of a giant magnetic field, you can use it to run a fusion reactor and accelerate spacecraft.”

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