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The launch cost of launching the mass of the pyramids of gaza into orbit would bankrupt the richest economies. No your hypothetical engine won't be 100% efficie

The launch cost of launching the mass of the pyramids of gaza into orbit would bankrupt the richest economies. No your hypothetical engine won't be 100% efficient. This is completely unfeasible. Low mass spacecraft are our only real options. A nano-sized solar sail craft powered by the sun or lasers from Earth can hit up to 20% lightspeed theoretically and its launch costs would be affordable, if not relatively cheap. We could have a spacecraft at Alpha Centauri in merely 20 years. Or simply launch them by the dozens or hundreds to various locations. Stephen Hawking has proposed this system in the past and we've had trial launches of solar sails via the planetary society and others. Its a solid and most likely doable concept at scale. Yes, your kids or grandkids will hear the results, but not you. Is that such a problem, especially when the alternatives are never launching a probe to those systems? To be fair, the proposed Centauri mission would be within a person's lifetime. 20 years to get there then another 4 and half to get the data. So if we launch when you're in your 40s or even 50s, you'll still see the data. We can even use this concept on heavier ships in the solar system to get to Mars quickly. How quickly? Three days quickly for a 100kg craft. This is a bit more pie-in-the-sky of course: http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-scientists-are-investigating-a-propulsion-system-that-could-reach-mars-in-3-days http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-scientists-are-investigatin...

drewrv 10y ago
You can't really just extrapolate the current cost of launching materials by the kilogram. A project of that magnitude would generate economies of scale and probably some innovations along the way that would bring down the cost. The "nearly perfect" fusion engine is really the hard part.
Arizhel 10y ago
>The launch cost of launching the mass of the pyramids of gaza into orbit would bankrupt the richest economies. No your hypothetical engine won't be 100% efficient. This is completely unfeasible. Not necessarily. You don't need to launch the mass of the pyramids from Earth, you just need to find a source of fuel somewhere else in the Solar System that's in a shallower gravity well, like on the Moon. This is why a lot of people want to work on mining asteroids, and building mining/refining/manufacturing infrastructure offworld.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
You are assuming that this mass will be launched using today's chemically powered rockets. But using nuclear propelled rockets will bring down the launch costs by orders of magnitude.

drewrv 10y ago

You can't really just extrapolate the current cost of launching materials by the kilogram. A project of that magnitude would generate economies of scale and probably some innovations along the way that would bring down the cost. The "nearly perfect" fusion engine is really the hard part.

Arizhel 10y ago

>The launch cost of launching the mass of the pyramids of gaza into orbit would bankrupt the richest economies. No your hypothetical engine won't be 100% efficient. This is completely unfeasible. Not necessarily. You don't need to launch the mass of the pyramids from Earth, you just need to find a source of fuel somewhere else in the Solar System that's in a shallower gravity well, like on the Moon. This is why a lot of people want to work on mining asteroids, and building mining/refining/manufacturing infrastructure offworld.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

You are assuming that this mass will be launched using today's chemically powered rockets. But using nuclear propelled rockets will bring down the launch costs by orders of magnitude.