Science of Avatar: Starships

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
The Atomic Rockets website. I learned a lot from this guy's site, and I think it's a wonderful site for anyone looking to design realistic spaceships for their science fiction novel, game, or movie.

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Science & Technology

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• Starships
• Spaceships
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[Eagle1Division2]

@LouistheHedgehog

@SimKoning

@RedwingApache

See what you can find on "David H. Froning Rotation into higher-dimensional space"

Requires no huge amounts of exotic materials, no huge amounts of energy or anything. Just a means by which to manipulate the underlying forces behind mass/inertia/gravity, which we're now starting to understand is the Higgs field, from LHC experiments. So it's not really that far off, just need to manipulate the Higgs field.

The physics are complicated. Look it up :P

[SimKoning]

@Eagle1Division2 Thanks, I'll look it up : )

[LouistheHedgehog]

You actually CAN travel at what would appear to be a FTL velocity without causing time dialiation problems. All you need to do is create a gravity distortion in front of the ship. The distortion will attract the ship, but will always be the same distance from it, causing the ship and the distortion to accelerate through space as long as the device is running. However, if you do this through gravitomagnetism, the magnetic field would be HUGE! Bigger than anything yet produced in any labratory.

[SimKoning]

@LouistheHedgehog You are about half right. I think you are referring to something like the Alcubierre warp metric. There are a few different versions, with different metrics, but none of them, as they found out two years ago, would allow FTL travel. The reason is that at FTL speeds, the warp bubble becomes unstable and produces Hawking radiation which would reduce the ship to plasma. I can provide links to the paper's abstract if you like.

[Membrane556]

For a realistic space fighter look at the Starfury from B5 which has thrusters all over it and flew backwards and sideways etc.

The re imagined BSG did at least have the Vipers fly properly in space for some scenes such as having one turn sides ways and backwards while firing.

[SimKoning]

@Membrane556 I love that design ; ). My dad actually has the scale model kit.

[LouistheHedgehog]

@SimKoning How about this? Instead of creating a timespace dip in front, and a timespace mound in back, how about instead creating a swirling timespace effect instead? This is done through gravitomagnetism. WIll that become unstable? Will that cause Hawking radiation? Any questions?

[AgrivatedKillah]

@Eagle1Division2 I agree whole heartedly.

The thing that really interest me is knowing that it could become a reality..and thats what makes sci fi so awesome.

[SimKoning]

@RedwingApache Plus, a spec of dirt would cause a massive explosion if it collided with the ship at 70% c. It would need some kind of shield to minimize the risk, but it seems to lack anything of the sort in the movie.

[SimKoning]

@RedwingApache There are a slew of other problems with the design: the "string" that pulls the crew module is waaaay too short (the crew would be cooked by radiation) and the heat radiator panels and rockets would almost certainly melt. That being said, it is the most realistic starship ever depicted on the big screen as far as I know.

[SimKoning]

@OrionIISagan190 thanks.