5 Retarded Space Travel Ideas (That Might Actually Work)
This whole space travel thing has gotten pretty boring ever since we landed on the moon. We can't make it to another planet and none of our ships have lasers. What the hell is the point?
But there were some incredibly awesome technologies that never made it off the drawing board. All because we didn't have the foresight, there wasn't enough funding, and they sounded like they were made up by a kindergartner.
#5.
The Gigantic Space Cannon
Gerald Bull was a physics genius, and without a doubt the greatest weapons designer that Canada has ever produced, which may very well be impressive for all we know of Canadian weapon designers. Bull's line of work was a field called "super-artillery", which is a military term meaning "huge fucking cannons."
One of his crowning achievements was the G5 Howitzer, which could launch a shell 30 miles. Being the sort of person who gets a Physics PhD and goes into the field of "giant gun design," Bull decided 30 miles was fucking embarrassing.
So he went to work with the American government in the High Altitude Research Project, where he pointed other gigantic guns directly up into the sky and fired objects up to 60 miles high. You know the Stratosphere? Bull shot through that shit, sending projectiles into something called the Mesosphere. But that wasn't enough. His dream was to build a cannon so big it could shoot a satellite into orbit. After all, isn't that how they'd do it in a cartoon?
Above: Gerald Bull
After trying the Americans, who shockingly turned down the opportunity to build a ludicrously huge cannon, he went about building and selling arms to crazed dictators from all over the world, including South Africa, China, and Iraq. He eventually convinced budding young Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein that the only way to make all the cool countries respect him was to have a space program built around his big-ass cannon.
Saddam put him to work building his dream. They made a small scale prototype to work out the kinks, and there were probably several considering the final gun (nicknamed Big Babylon) was to be 500 feet long and 3 feet wide. It would have to be built into a freaking hill, just to stand up.
So Why Don't We Have One?
Before they could import the materials for Big Babylon, Hussein decided to invade Kuwait, and brought down the wrath of the international community.
It turns out part of Iraq's strategy in the Gulf War consisted of shooting at the Israelis. Israel wound up sending the Mossad (they're sort of like the CIA only they're actually good at what they do) after Iraq's weapon suppliers. Shortly thereafter, Bull was found dead in his apartment with 5 bullets in his head.
And thus, another of the world's dreamers died, taking his dreams with him. Just as John Lennon wanted world peace, Gerald Bull simply wanted a gun big enough to fire shit into space.
#4.
The Atom Bomb-Powered Spacecraft
Even when space travel was still on the drawing board, mankind was full of visions of missions to Mars and space hotels. We saw with sinking disappointment that people could only go up in tiny little capsules with stale air, cramped quarters, and crappy food, and even then only after decades of training.
But there was a pair of crazy bastards named Ted Taylor and Freeman Dyson who headed a project to build a huge, sci-fi atomic spacecraft. And no, we don't mean that it worked on atomic power (though NASA tried to do that, too, with a project called NERVA). We're talking about something way, way more awesome than that.
Freeman Dyson totally doesn't look crazy or anything.
Their idea was a mammoth spaceship weighing up to 7 million tons that ran on nuclear bombs. Yes, nuclear bombs. As in, you take a huge spaceship, and stick a fucking nuke under it, then set it off. These guys would have taken one look at the giant gun guy and laughed in his face.
So the ship gets flung into the atmosphere by the nuclear explosion that just happened under it. Then what? It's going to start slowing down eventually, right? Well, you drop another nuke out of the concave (and heavily armored) bottom of the ship, and detonate it when it gets about 200 feet away. Rinse and repeat until you're in orbit. What could possibly go wrong?
Uhh...
Oddly enough, the lift-off would actually be smoother than any shuttle liftoff because the sheer mass of the enormous vehicle would almost completely eliminate turbulence. Initial tests were conducted with C4 and determined that the project was not only feasible, but actually exceeded expectations.
So Why Don't We Have One?
First, a bunch of party-pooping anti-nuclear types got a hold of it and started on with their "fallout" this and "environmental catastrophe" that. Then when the 1963 Treaty banning upper atmospheric nuclear detonation was signed it basically gave the project the kiss of death.
That's right, it took a Treaty to convince people that a nuclear-bomb-shitting space city was a bad idea.
#3.
Buzz Aldrin's Martian Gravity Express
After Nixon started the 1970s fad of slashing NASA's budget whenever they asked for money, it became something of a government tradition. To try to deal with having craptastic funding, NASA veteran Buzz Aldrin came up with a clever idea to save money going to Mars: Don't use any fuel.
Instead of actually powering the ship, he suggested you use Earth's gravity like a slingshot, shooting it into mars' gravitation field, which then would sling it back at earth. It would theoretically continue with this gravitational slingshottery until the end of time, using almost no fuel, and allowing them to load it up with equipment and personnel in a detachable cargo ship to drop every time it got close to Mars.
Above: Cracked's childlike grasp on this complex concept.
Also, you would get two going in opposite directions, because the way the gravity system works out, the trip there is nice and speedy, but the trip back takes a while. This way one of the ships would spend the short trip going Mars to earth, and the other would be earth to mars. No problem!
So Why Don't We Have One?
The long end of the trip takes about 21 months. At about this point the guys at NASA stopped listening, because who the hell wants to wait two years to be able to send another shuttle?
This also means the departure times are non-negotiable. Still working out the kinks on your little Mars rover? Too bad, the bus is leaving! Better luck next time, assholes!
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Reply(on my name)
The only thing that gave me pause here was spelling orangutan as "orangutang." Sheesh.
ReplyWell if we're talking about Canadian weapons designers, how about John Garand. You know the guy who designed the M1 Garand?
ReplyRule of thumb. If Wile E. Coyote could have thought it up, it's a bad idea.
Reply4. would work fine if intitially launched with conventional thrusters. The nukes could start firing after the spacecraft left the earth's magnetic field, which would deflect any fallout. Obviously that would put a size limit on the spacecraft, but it would still be able to reach any and every corner of the solar system within a year...
ReplyAgreed I have heard this proposed for thrust not for initial 'blast' off.
how about.... a big ass ladder/skyscraper that cums out space shuttles or something.
Replyi believe they tried that in south park when they attempted to build a ladder to heaven so they could reach kenny!
So a space elevator?
The book "Footfall" by Niven and Pournelle describe #4 (nuke powered spacecraft) fairly well. It's elegant in a horrific way.
ReplyPeople probably taste like chicken.
ReplyNot that I'd know or anything...
>.>
I see what you did there, Eddie :)
Finally! Freeman Dyson proves that elves exist!!!
ReplyVALID QUESTION INCOMING...
ReplyFor the slingshot idea, don't Mars and Earth have different orbits? I thought at some points in time they are really far apart and sometimes they are really close, common sense tells me that they would be on opposites sides of the sun sometimes.
That's why it'd take so long at some points.
Nuclear bomb shitting space city made me laugh my ass off.
ReplyAn article about Freeman Dyson with no mention of the Dyson Sphere? Picard would be ashamed!
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesOr Miles Dyson?
even mike tyson would be!!!!
The title of the article was "retarded" space travel ideas. A Dyson sphere network is actually a quite plausible idea.
And proof that retarded isn't limited to just space ideas. Thanks for reassuring me of that fact tr3... can you're name be any more stupid?
Or not. The encased star system can't provide enough materiel required to build the sphere.
My grandmother has a Dyson. They work really well.
The only solution is private space programs, regrettably. NASA is too wrapped up in old ideas and keeping a huge beaurocracy employed. Maybe the private groups can gradually take on the other ideas as they can.afford it - I know, I'm nopt thrilled about the timeline either but forget NASA. (Look at their newest design with shuttle carryover elements. Sheesh!)
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThe government actually funding NASA might have helped and government is always going to have more funds than a private interest group, that and I wouldnt trust aspiring Blofelds to not put space lasers or some such cartoonish supervillainy occuring.
Yes. The private angle has worked out real well. Investors are just clamoring to invest in space travel. That's why all manned flights in the past decade have been funded by governments.
The only problem is that no private organization is going to be able to raise the funds needed to do anything new. It's to risky, would cost to much, and would have no immediate return. Essentially, it'd be a charity! Sure, setting up a mining operation on the moon to get those high energy particles for s**t like fusion would give good returns but how long would it take to profit and how risky and expensive would it be in the mean time? Unfortunately gov't funded space travel is our best hope for taking the leap from orbiting earth to getting a moon base
f**k it i'd eat space tumor. can't be worse than mcD's
ReplyDamnit, replied to the wrong comment.
I would try the meat in #2.
Replyhi would no hesitation f**k that im french if i can eat frog legs bring the f*****g tumor and salt please ^^
This is why NASA needs to test it's projects on people who aren't astronauts. They're simply to well cared for. They've become snooty with their refusal to eat Soylent Yellow. Now, test out your projects in the projects of Philadelphia or the like and you'll find everyone loves Soylent Yellow.
Soylent Yellow, the one that isn't people.
"This also means the departure times are non-negotiable. Still working out the kinks on your little Mars rover? Too bad, the bus is leaving! Better luck next time, assholes!"
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesOf course, launch windows work like that anyway, so it's not a strange, new burden.
Only going to Mars, and even with that they have at least a couple of weeks window.
And where the fuck's the idea of launching multiple ships so that you have regular pickup schedules? Like you know... a bus. >_>
also there is a fuckton of middle ground between the Aldrin transfer loop and "never going to mars".
I saw an idea similar to the nuke ship, only it was a metal disk to shoot at spacecraft.
ReplyAll this will be a lot easier once we've perfected carbon nano tubes.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesWell, we are a good way towards that goal. We (as in people much smarter than us, somewhere out there) have already conceived the technology to produce them in quantity and with relatively stringent quality control. Unfortunately, as of now we are quite limited in how long they can be made (the limit being very, very, very short). However, once it becomes feasible to create carbon nanotubes that are measured in meters as opposed to nanometers, almost every form of technology will be advanced, from computers and spacecraft to cars and washing machines, cable and wiring to televisions and the internet.
Basically, once we have the internet delivered via a combination of carbon nanotubes and fiber-optics, speeds will surpass 1TB/sec, computers will have processors with cores numbering in the hundreds (if not thousands) with each processing at speeds equivalent to at least 10ghz, RAM will become extraordinarily fast (1ghz FSB, anyone?), true optical storage will become reality and even commonplace, and even laptop screens will be able to achieve resolutions of 4k or higher (4x1080p).
In short: carbon nano-tubes are the future, and they will rock the foundation of every aspect of technology.
Insert 'Internet is a series of tubes' joke.
You know. I remember twenty years ago when someone said. "Everything will be a lot easier once the internet becomes more common. Computers will be more powerful and complex than the human brain!".
He was a fool too.
#1 made me laugh. They thought up this complex plan of interstellar travel with no mention of what mach 64k would do to a person? The second that thing took off you would be disintegrated lol. Wouldn't that be one of the first things you would take into account? in fact that is one of the huge obstacles we face for space travel. Its not so much that we cant produce the speed needed to travel to, say mars. Its being able to reach that speed while keeping the astronauts inside alive. I think humans can only take around mach 10 before serious damage happens, and that's nowhere near fast enough to travel to any planet in any conceivable time limit.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesMach 64k is impossible in space as Mach is a function that involves the the speed of sound which is a function of air pressure (so irrelevant in a vacuum). Not to mention, with no gravity the speed of the spacecraft is moot, you would never feel it (I think you are confusing Gs with Mach number). Bear in mind that the space shuttle reentering the Earth's atmosphere is traveling at 18,000 mph and at 400,000ft that's only Mach 25 but the crew still survives that.
I think it's pretty clear (you know, the not being able to stop part, etc) that this mission was conceived as an unmanned probe.
As to the question of humans tolerating speed, humans can in fact tolerate any speed at all. Astronauts in orbit for example go much, much faster than the equivalent of Mach 10. The problem is acceleration, and the time needed for acceleration. For example, the very best fighter pilots with all the technological support we can give them, can endure maybe 9G for several seconds before blacking out (and dying if the G forces are sustained). And a continuous G over 2-3 would be very uncomfortable for pretty much anything. At the other end of the scale, car accident victims have endured over 50G for a brief instant and survived(though not everyone, and 100G is generally considered to be the "instant death" point).
For example, if you accelerated at 1G for just over 1 year, the people on the craft would be completely comfortable throughout it all, feeling basically the equivalent of earth-like gravity, and at the end of that period, they'd being going about 90% the speed of light.
If you accelerate at 1G for a couple weeks towards Mars, turn your spaceship around and decelerate at 1G after passing the halfway point, you could get to Mars in perfect comfort in under a month.
But we are nowhere near the kind of propulsion technology needed to provide a continuous 1G acceleration for that length of time.
Once again, Amphiox, you deserve a Molly. . . I was just going to call this guy a retard.
@amphiox something like a cannon, you mean?
accelerate at 9.8m/s squared and you have earth-normal gravity.
doing that in an Orion drive for about a quarter of the distance to the nearest star gets you to its maximum available speed.
i am not sure if you are overestimating the acceleration required or failing to note that it is only acceleration that generates force on the astronauts (so travelling at mach whatever is no problem, so long as you change speed gradually), but either way you're wrong.
The G force is merely the equivalent force exerted by the earth over the period of one second. When measuring how much force a human being can withstand you have to take that into account. For instance, a human experiencing 50G's in an accident isn't actually experiencing 50G's. That's because the force exerted occurs over a period of time much shorter than a second. It would only be 50G's if that force was consistently applied for the full second.
More importantly. Mach is the speed of sound. A velocity is constant when no force is applied to it and it's the force, or change in velocity, that causes damage to the human being. A space ship can go to 64,000 times the speed of sound and the people inside will be fine. Provided the acceleration isn't much more than 1G. Up to 4G (approximately) can cause long term health problems and above 4G can cause severe short term problems including blacking out and death.
Notably one could get the ship to go even faster than the speed listed but it would require more fuel.
How would a person be able to be blasted out of a gigantic cannon and do anything but turn to a red mist? No matter how protected you are the sheer g-force would liquify you. I get that the cannon could shoot "objects" close to space but a person? This is assuming the phrase "space travel" means a person traveling through space and not just putting anything INTO space. You would think a brilliant physicist would be able to think of a better way then just building a huge f*****g gun to shoot things into space. The whole law of physics would seem to dispute a person being shot into space at a billion miles an hour from a giant cannon and coming back.
ReplyAgain, the space gun was obviously intended not for people, but to launch things like satellites into orbit. Or the building parts of space stations and space ships to be assembled in orbit (by robots or astronauts to get there some other way).
length of barrel; the longer the barrel the more time you have to apply acceleration so the longer you can take so the less the G force on the payload. Bear in mind there was talk of a gun half a *kilometre* long.