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Advanced Solar Energy in Space: Part II
In this post, we continue looking at high power density options for solar energy.Brayton cycleWe commonly see the Brayton cycle used to convert heat into work in jet engines and the steam turbines of...
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Piracy in Space is Possible Part I: Dastardly DeltaV and Stealth Steamers
Space Piracy is a common science fiction trope. It has been continuously derided in Hard Science Fiction as silly and a holdover of the 'Space is an Ocean' analogy. But is it really that unrealistic to...
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Piracy in Space is Possible Part II: Armed Merchants and Pirate Patrols
There's more to piracy than just attacking a target and running away afterwards. Put yourself in the shoes of a pirate, a merchant or the authorities. What would you do?Fighting backPirates...
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Permanent and Perfect Stealth in Space
Despite the commonly accepted truth in Hard Science Fiction, spacecraft are able to evade detection in space in many circumstances. The Hydrogen Steamer was a design that used liquid hydrogen...
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Lasers, Mirrors and Star Pyramids
Lasers can hit targets at extreme ranges, at the fastest speed possible. They are ideal weapons for space warfare. However, everyone knows that lasers bounce off mirrors... does this make lasers...
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Inter-Orbital Kinetic Energy Exchanges: Part I
Electrical power can be transferred between planets using high velocity masses. Kinetic Energy Exchanges are an efficient concept that can output more energy than it consumes and only gets better with...
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Particle Beams in Space
Science fiction is missing a realistic and grounded look at particle beams. We plan to do just that now. After reading this, you might decide to give particle beams their rightful place alongside...
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Cold, Laser-Coupled Particle Beams
This is a follow-up to the Particle Beams in Space post.This time, we look at two concepts that can massively increase the effective range of particle beam: one is being applied every day in modern...
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Nuclear Reactor Lasers: from Fission to Photon
Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no intermediate conversion steps. We work out just how effective they can be, and how they stack up...
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Actively Cooled Armor: from Helium to Liquid Tin.
We have seen designs for long ranged particle beams and powerful lasers. Could they be the end-all, be-all of space warfare? Not if we fend off their destructive power with actively cooled armor.Let's...
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Starship Lite: from rapid Interplanetary to Interstellar
Elon Musk stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary boost vehicle able to push probes towards the farthest objects in our Solar System. What other missions could the...
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Thermal Decomposition of CO2 with Nuclear Heat
A lot of effort must and will be put into combating climate change. We can however directly attack the root cause of it by reducing the amount of CO2 that we have released into the atmosphere.We can...
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How to Live on Other Planets: Uranus
The weirdest of the planets. A blue giant, resting on its side. Could we find a home in the Uranian system?DescriptionUranus is the fourth-largest planet and the first ‘ice giant’. It orbits between...
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NTER: Nuclear Thermal-Electric Rocket
There is a type of nuclear propulsion that can have most of the acceleration of a nuclear thermal rocket but also the high Isp of an electric thruster. Let’s have a look at nuclear ‘thermal-electric’...
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The Expanse's Epstein Drive
We aim to take a fictional propulsion technology from The Expanse, and apply the appropriate science to explain its features in a realistic manner.This also applies to other SciFi settings that want a...
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Hypervelocity Macron Accelerators
We look at the various ways of accelerating micro-scale projectiles up to hypervelocity (10-10,000 km/s) and their use in space.Going small to go fastMacrons or macroscopic particles are tiny...
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Space Tethers: Stringing up the Solar System
All the methods we have used to reach space so far have been subject to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation - propellant must be ejected and more and more of it is needed to go further.What if we could...
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Nuclear Photon Rockets: Flashlights to the Stars
In this post, we will have a look at the concept of using a nuclear photon rocket for interstellar travel. They are an old concept that should theoretically be the ultimate form of relativistic...
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Moto-Orion: Mechanized Nuclear Pulse Propulsion
The Orion nuclear pulse propulsion concept has been around for over six decades now. It is powerful and robust, but lacks the flexibility and features we expect from many more modern designs.Can we...
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Fusion Highways in Space
A transport system that can get spacecraft to Jupiter in 10 days, but without a massive onboard reactor, using antimatter fuel or riding a gigantic laser beam? What we need instead is a Fusion Highway...
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