Which Scifi Waste Heat Tech is better?

[jjabrams55]

I still hold that my idea of increasing efficiency has greater logic - because it uses less energy. The less energy needed, the more likely something is to be achieved. All engineering heads towards greater efficiency.
On this forum we try for well thought out debate about science fiction ideas, and science fiction storytelling. I see nothing wrong in pointing out that you have not made a logical argument. After all - for suspension of disbelief in story telling you need a consistent internal logic to a story. So you started a thread asking for help, I and others spend time giving you help, you don't like what I've said and have not only been dismissive to me, you have been rude about this forum. Not what I'd call a winning strategy for getting further help.

I apologize if I was rude toward you. Nonetheless... I never once asked for ideas to work out my own. I do like to see others ideas to see if there is something they know that I don't already know, but with the exception of a few here, not including you, I haven't seen anything that I don't already know for this post. I assure you, I well know how to make up scifi tech/handwavium science, so doing what you suggested (making up 'new science' that contradicts known physics) would be taking the easy way out for me.

And as regards ideas that are purely from the imagination of writers, there is no idea that is more valid than another. If that's your opinion... fine, but your opinion is not fact. Hopefully you don't believe that, because if you do, you'll have trouble. Do it for yourself, don't try to push it on others as if your opinion is the only way to do something. There is more than one way to cook a potato.

George Lucas violates physics/logic all day long, and he laughs his way to the bank.

Anytime I make a fictional scifi technology, I think through the implications of it. Which is exactly why I could never rely on just saying ''The haroldson equation made it so that we only generate a trivial amount of waste heat even though we are using our engine for FTL."

If I can't think about what those implication are, I don't use such an idea. Which is why your idea is not something I will use.

 

[Montero]

Actually, if "And as regards ideas that are purely from the imagination of writers, there is no idea that is more valid than another." were true, then there would have been no point in you starting this thread, asking which of your two ideas people found the most convincing.
You can build your imaginary ideas on a convincing foundation, or not. I find the concept of claiming that space flight technology will have a big waste heat problem to be unconvincing. It is not an "opinion" that a space ship is a discrete entity which has to carry its fuel with it. Then, arising from that, if that entity is so inefficient as to have a major problem with waste heat then the space ship technology is unlikely to be economically viable for long, regular journeys. That is simple science and economics. If you want to put technology like that in your book, that is your choice. I am not "pushing" you to use my ideas, I am responding to a discussion on credibility, and including examples.
Finally, I think Chrispenycate has rather hit an important nail on the head with his post before yours.

Incidentally, you might want to expand briefly on how you see FTL working, as it might help the discussion in this thread. Are you trying to accelerate in defiance of Einstein's equations? Or find a way around?

 

[Brian G Turner]

@jjabrams55 - how much of your novel do you really intend to dedicate to this issue? If it's simply a world-building issue, rather than a plot point, surely it's not going to take more than a single sentence - if it even needs mentioning at all?

 

[jjabrams55]

Actually, if "And as regards ideas that are purely from the imagination of writers, there is no idea that is more valid than another." were true, then there would have been no point in you starting this thread, asking which of your two ideas people found the most convincing.
You can build your imaginary ideas on a convincing foundation, or not. I find the concept of claiming that space flight technology will have a big waste heat problem to be unconvincing. It is not an "opinion" that a space ship is a discrete entity which has to carry its fuel with it. Then, arising from that, if that entity is so inefficient as to have a major problem with waste heat then the space ship technology is unlikely to be economically viable for long, regular journeys. That is simple science and economics. If you want to put technology like that in your book, that is your choice. I am not "pushing" you to use my ideas, I am responding to a discussion on credibility, and including examples.
Finally, I think Chrispenycate has rather hit an important nail on the head with his post before yours.

Incidentally, you might want to expand briefly on how you see FTL working, as it might help the discussion in this thread. Are you trying to accelerate in defiance of Einstein's equations? Or find a way around?

How? I have various FTL schemes in mind, each designed by a different alien race. Yet they incorporate all three races technology into their starships since they are allied together. Usually only one type of FTL system is used per ship, but other alien tech is incorporated anyway.

Race 1: Creates wormholes (the spherical kind as seen in interstellar). It's as simple as pointing the ship in the direction you want and making a wormhole appear. The only caveat is that lightspeed limits it. In other words, if you wanted to wormhole to the sun's surface, it would take about 8 minutes from Earth before your wormhole appeared on the Sun's surface, connecting with another wormhole right in front of your ship that is created simultaneously. It's great for solar travel. Not so great for interstellar travel (a trip to alpha centauri would be a wait of four years before the wormhole ever opened).

Also wormholes conserve momentum, so using them from planet to space is not advised. The velocity differences alone would kill someone or perhaps lots of people in an atmospheric fireball. Wormholes also have a little bit of mass, composed of interstellar dust trapped inside them. Which means that wormholes can orbit planets/stars just like anything else.

Race 2: Uses a special warp ring located at the ship's mid-section to thread space itself like the eye of a needle would do to fabric. The drive comes in two flavors that are different mainly because of efficiency vs performance (the classic fighter jet vs passenger jet comparison).

High charge: Can travel a LY per minute, but has a LY limit before it drops warp to automatically recharge the drive. The LY limit is always less than ten LY. 7 LY is common. So after 7 LY, you would have to wait seven hours before your drive charged up to full again. Great for getting to places of relatively short distance in the interstellar range.

Low charge: Can travel a LY per hour. The LY limit before recharging is greater than high charge drives, usually in the tens range. For example, a 42 LY charge drive is common. More expensive drives will give even higher LY ranges before recharging. Unlike high charge drive, recharging is much faster, since after 42 LY, it would only take 42 minutes to charge up your drive to full. This drive is used for long range travel.

Warping space like thread causes interstellar gas to actually get thick, since the ship is moving TONS of interstellar gas and squeezing it through it's warp ring. In so doing the gas becomes visible and shows of various glowing hues like an aurora. The gas alone would and should burn the ship into a cinder from friction. But it doesn't. Why not? All ships are equipped with spatial deflector generators in front of the ship. They deflect space with a short ripple wave ahead of the ship, which deflects the gases from hitting the ship, making them flow over and around it instead.

The gases kind of look like the gases flowing over the ship from Stargate universe, with the added spatial effects I already mentioned (space being warped like thread through a needle's eye, and the gases bending/flowing over the ripple wave projected from the ship.

The energy for this is undisclosed. It's not something I plan to get into, since this is a plot device anyway.


Race 3: Has developed VERY efficient high thrust STL (slower than light drives), but lacked designing any FTL ships. They rely on buying/renting warp ships.

Phased Tachyon Energy drive: Turns out faster than light particles with mass don't exist. But faster than light forms of energy DO. That is the basis for the drive. Basically you convert matter (could be something as simple as a rock) and convert it 100% into tachyonic energy, which is shot out the back of your ship for thrust. In an atmosphere this manifests itself as white visible rays that burn stuff like a blowtorch. They also provide rocket levels of thrust. Tachyon energy is reflected off concave mirror pits, which only glow white in the air, since the tachyons reacting with the air makes the air hot and causes the mirror to shine as well from the heat energy produced.

In space the mirror won't glow white even while the tachyons are being emitted, since there is no air to react with. It still provides rocket level thrust though, and the tachyons don't burn anything at all until they hit something.

Using specially engineered forms of matter designed purely as a source of fuel for tachyon conversion, ships currently can thrust 1g for a WHOLE hour on only a pound of hyperium (a metal designed at the sub-quantum level to be used as fuel source for tachyon conversion). No normal matter provides the same fuel efficiency, so ships have to go to fuel stations to refuel when they are exhausted.


BTW: Me asking posters for what they thought was better was not me asking bout validity, I was merely asking what their preference was. I don't base my work off the preferences of posters. I do what I prefer. I only demonstrated the IRL consequences of designing a drive that relied on portal tech.

 

[jjabrams55]

@jjabrams55 - how much of your novel do you really intend to dedicate to this issue? If it's simply a world-building issue, rather than a plot point, surely it's not going to take more than a single sentence - if it even needs mentioning at all?

It may or may not be a plot point. I haven't even got into making a plot yet. However it will likely effect the plot some, otherwise I would have no reason for doing it at all. It will surely effect how characters spend their time, since they will have to do something during travel time.

 

[WaylanderToo]

I'm reading Doug Dandridge's Exodus series and his solution is (to a non-scientist - ie me!) quite ingenious. His stealth ships are near as dammit invisible, however, as you rightly point out they do develop a lot of heat and so would be easily detected. The answer? Mini-wormholes which dump all the excess heat out where-ever the other end of the wormhole is, leading to an infinite (to all intents and purposes) heat-sink who's temp is effectively absolute zero

 

[jjabrams55]

I'm reading Doug Dandridge's Exodus series and his solution is (to a non-scientist - ie me!) quite ingenious. His stealth ships are near as dammit invisible, however, as you rightly point out they do develop a lot of heat and so would be easily detected. The answer? Mini-wormholes which dump all the excess heat out where-ever the other end of the wormhole is, leading to an infinite (to all intents and purposes) heat-sink who's temp is effectively absolute zero

So essentially a portal system like I envisioned in the beginning of the thread more or less. More realistic would be far more complex as I suggested, relying on a portal network connected to a ice blocks on planet's, and to save even more waste heat, you could just put the power source for the cloak/drive on a planet too... leaving the end product effect for the ship itself on the other side of the portal.

In space you can only radiate heat, which is the least efficient way to get rid of heat. With a portal you would ideally be linked to a planet and use fans to blow hot air onto ice blocks to cool it and thus the entire ship.

 

[Dulahan]

I find this whole conversation terribly confusing.

 

[Steven Sorrels]

Why not just use the completely viable Mass Effect route and have heat sinks built into the hull that hold the heat until a certain point, after which the vessel stops moving and radiates the excess heat into space? While you are correct that space is largely empty, it's still only about 4 Kelvin outside the ship.

And if you don't like the idea of venting into the void, why not just have periodic stops at planets, enter the upper atmosphere in a high orbit (slow enough to not generate more heat), and vent into that? Or nebulae? They definitely would be able to absorb any radiated heat, unless you entered an active star nursery, but then you would have more pressing concerns.

 

[WaylanderToo]

Why not just use the completely viable Mass Effect route and have heat sinks built into the hull that hold the heat until a certain point, after which the vessel stops moving and radiates the excess heat into space? While you are correct that space is largely empty, it's still only about 4 Kelvin outside the ship.

And if you don't like the idea of venting into the void, why not just have periodic stops at planets, enter the upper atmosphere in a high orbit (slow enough to not generate more heat), and vent into that? Or nebulae? They definitely would be able to absorb any radiated heat, unless you entered an active star nursery, but then you would have more pressing concerns.

if you are a scifi stealth ship releasing heat at various point just clues in the oppo that there is something in the region which could then negate any advantage of said stealth

 

[Steven Sorrels]

if you are a scifi stealth ship releasing heat at various point just clues in the oppo that there is something in the region which could then negate any advantage of said stealth

That's why I suggested doing so in unobtrusive places such as nebulae where that displaced heat would go unnoticed. Venting into empty space would be like lighting a flare, however.

I was just throwing out the concept as a possible solution. No telling how long between purges said tech could go.