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We need to build a huge space ship with a fusion engine and send it to the nearest star. But that sort of doesn't make any sense because we have lots of our own
by x5n1 11y ago
We need to build a huge space ship with a fusion engine and send it to the nearest star. But that sort of doesn't make any sense because we have lots of our own solar system to explore.
- charriu 11y agoThere might also be the small problem of actually building the fusion engine first. I don't think that's something we're really able to do right now, is it?
- x5n1 11y agoI am glad you asked: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propu... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Longshot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Longshot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Mag_Orion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Mag_Orion
- bryondowd 11y agoThree of those are fission, not fusion. And Daedalus looks more like a very high level concept, without the actual tech to accomplish it.
- x5n1 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29#Interstellar_missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propu... You could potentially replace fission with fusion and speed things up. And yes they were high level designs because of the supposedly immense expense.
- bryondowd 11y agoRight. I'm sure fusion will one day allow us to do incredible things. We just haven't figured it out, yet. Right now, our best attempts at fusion (to my knowledge) put in orders of magnitude more energy than they get out. And the first applications of positive fusion energy would likely be to generate cheap power on Earth, long before it reaches a point where we could drive a ship with it.
- 0xffff2 11y agoDaedalus is not even a high level concept at the level we are talking about, it's a completely different level altogether. Project Daedalus was more like a project to establish reasonable parameters on which to base a high level concept.
- rimantas 11y agoWell, the nearest star is the Sun, so…