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photon · 11-08-2008, 05:12 PM

Ok lets see, to get to the nearest star in a lifetime you need a megawatt per pound:

http://www.time.com/time/reports/v21/science/stars.html

So the question is how big a ship do you need? I guess that depends on what you are going there for... To explore? Or to colonize?

Colonize is what I had in mind, exploring would be a lot smaller.

A fully loaded 747 weighs almost a million pounds, fully assembled shuttle stack 4.5 million pounds (though most of that is fuel). If we're going to explore, could we get away with a ship between 10 and 100 times that size? We're taking all the fuel we need, all the food, everything. Recycling will be critical.

A colonization ship would be orders of magnitude higher again.

So lets say we're super efficient and it's a only 50 million pounds. That's 50 million megawatts. A nuclear reactor produces what, 500 megawatts? Wikipedia says all the earth's nuclear reactors produce 370,000 MW, so we'd need 135 times that.

And I think my weight estimate is probably really really low, if it was a generational ship or colonization ship it'd be maybe billions of pounds.

And that's just to the nearest star, if the nearest earth like planet is 10 times further...

So just one ship could eat up a significant amount of the earth's energy reserves.

The only way it's even plausible is gaining the ability to harvest energy from the sun in large amounts, or other stuff like ram jets etc..

11-08-2008, 05:12 PM	#55
photon The new goggles also do nothing. Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Calgary Exp:	Ok lets see, to get to the nearest star in a lifetime you need a megawatt per pound: http://www.time.com/time/reports/v21/science/stars.html So the question is how big a ship do you need? I guess that depends on what you are going there for... To explore? Or to colonize? Colonize is what I had in mind, exploring would be a lot smaller. A fully loaded 747 weighs almost a million pounds, fully assembled shuttle stack 4.5 million pounds (though most of that is fuel). If we're going to explore, could we get away with a ship between 10 and 100 times that size? We're taking all the fuel we need, all the food, everything. Recycling will be critical. A colonization ship would be orders of magnitude higher again. So lets say we're super efficient and it's a only 50 million pounds. That's 50 million megawatts. A nuclear reactor produces what, 500 megawatts? Wikipedia says all the earth's nuclear reactors produce 370,000 MW, so we'd need 135 times that. And I think my weight estimate is probably really really low, if it was a generational ship or colonization ship it'd be maybe billions of pounds. And that's just to the nearest star, if the nearest earth like planet is 10 times further... So just one ship could eat up a significant amount of the earth's energy reserves. The only way it's even plausible is gaining the ability to harvest energy from the sun in large amounts, or other stuff like ram jets etc.. __________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.