A Steam Powered Starship (Discussion) [Archive]

Kai

February 13th, 2001, 02:37 PM

okies as some know I'm desgining the bridge of a steam powered starship.. I won't go into the story behind this design, (all will be explained later)

The idea is that the ship is powered by focused sunlight onto thte boilers to replace the need to burn coal or wood. the steam is used to ionise reaction mass gathere by support ships, with some of the powwer stored in Tesla Jars and lead acid batteries for later use.

comments anyone?

Kai

Godfrey

February 14th, 2001, 07:50 AM

If such a design were workable, the ship would have to be mostly batteries if it were intended as an interstellar vessel (or even to visit the outer planets of a stellar system); solar power won't work too well once you get out past a certain distance from the sun. Out in between stars, there isn't enough sunlight to run a solar-powered calculator -- and the ship's inertia would eventually be worn down by collisions with particulate matter, etc...

If it's truly a starship, and not just an interplanetary vessel, it would probably have to be either a generational or sleeper ship -- I can't envision steam producing any kind of thrust (even indirectly) that would come close to making the journey between stars possible within a single lifetime.

A generational ship introduces additional problems, because you'd need a big enough ship to include gardens or hydroponics bays, in order to be self-sufficient; however, this increases the mass, which in turn increases the amount of thrust needed to move the vessel (not to mention additional energy requirements for growing lamps, etc.)

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Jeff Lee -- shipbrk@gate.net -- http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/
POV-Ray (http://www.povray.org/) oldtimer, Animation Master (http://www.hash.com/) newbie.

Etiam singula minima maximi momenti est. <FONT size="1"><FONT COLOR="blue">(Even the smallest detail is of the utmost importance.)</FONT c></FONT s>