In article > ,
says...
>
> "Mike Dworetsky" > wrote in message
> news >
> > Joe Snodgrass wrote:
> > > On Jan 30, 8:02 pm, robertva > wrote:
> > >> On 1/30/2011 7:27 PM, Joe Snodgrass wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> What's the best way to make anti-matter for your rocket engine? An
> > >>> accelerator. That's why Clarke's spaceship was so long in the 2001
> > >>> movie.
> > >>
> > >> All this time I thought it has fission powered engines (and general
> > >> electrical power generation as well) and the long boom was supposed
> > >> to reduce the crew's radiation exposure. There wold also need to be
> > >> some serious volume for consumables storage, with two crewmen eating
> > >> and breathing for the entire voyage. There would also need to be
> > >> some place to store the air pumped out of that huge bay every time
> > >> they used a pod.
> > >
> > > Unless it were a pulsed engine. You spend a few days building up your
> > > anti-matter supply and then, PCHOOM!!, fire all of the guns at once
> > > and explode into space. I'm still working on why you'd want to do
> > > that, but I do know that one of the Skunk Works' classified projects
> > > at Area 51 is a pulsed conventional engine. They must like 'em pulsed
> > > for some reason.
> >
> > Thermodynamics still applies; it would take more energy to produce the
> > antimatter than you would get out of it, because the manufacturing is not
> > 100% efficient [partly because production results in various particles that
> > leak away and carry energy]. Better to apply that energy to producing
> > propulsion directly than producing antimatter.
> >
> > A pulsed conventional engine (like the WW2 V1 flying bombs) is very basic
> > technology, very cheap to manufcture, but remarkably enough, it still
> > requires a fuel tank to be filled up before launch; they don't manufacture
> > the fuel on board during flight, in between pulses.
>
> In the 1950s, the Pentagon funded a research project, Orion, to build a
> starship that could be powered by the explosion of a series of atomic
> bombs, one after the other. A "pusher plate" made of special materials
> would shield the starship cabin from the atomic explosions, and act as a
> shock absorber to smooth out the impulses. A dispenser not unlike that
> in a Coca-Cola vending machine would drop atomic bombs out the
> spaceship, one after the other. These would explode against the pusher
> plate, one at a time, propelling the ship forward.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project..._propulsion%29
>

Kubrick was considering this as a method for Discovery's propulsion in
2001:ASO, but decided that he'd already had enough of exploding nukes.

--
Halmyre

The more you know the less the better