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Subject: Another way of space travel.
Miles    6/18/2007 6:56:44 PM
Do you know in science fiction, space ships always use hyper speed, slip space drive, or wrap speed? What else is there another way to space driver from one star system to another? I thought a teleportation as another way of space travel. But I don't know how that will work. What's your concept?
 
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Yimmy       6/18/2007 7:07:24 PM
How about conventional sub-light speeds, and mandatory breeding?
 
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Jeff_F_F       6/18/2007 8:08:14 PM
Hooray for solar sails!
 
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andyf       6/19/2007 5:35:01 PM
how about converting the ship into unstable ftl particles- that all decay at the same instant back into the real thing
 
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Treadgar    Starflight Handbook   7/5/2007 10:14:48 AM
Bussard ram jets is one method postulated by some of the minds that think of these things. Essentially you have a tube that uses magnetic fields to ram interstellar hydrogen down the tubes throat where it is compressed by these same fields to acheive fusion. The Fusion reaction is channeled out the back. You need to acheive relativistic velocities for this to work, meaning somewhere above .5 speed of light. At those speeds flying through the vacuum of space becomes more like flying through an atmosphere. Why? Just because your moving so fast, and the vacuum isn't a perfect vacuum. There are bits and pieces of rare dust and gas. Now that your moving above .5 SOL you encounter these much more quickly. Of course this leads to the problem of stellar erosion, meaning even those molecules of matter pack quite a punch. A good book for this and other star travel schemes is The Starflight Handbook by Eugene Mallove & Gregory Matloff. It helps to be familiar with some pretty advanced mathematics to fully understand this book, but I think it's a great source of inspiration for a hard core science fiction writer.

Treadgar
 
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Heorot       7/17/2007 5:50:55 PM
For stories based on Bussard ramjet travel, you need to read Larry Niven's Known Space stories.



 
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Treadgar       7/18/2007 10:24:33 AM
I've read all the Known Space stories. Very good.

Treadgar
 
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Miles       7/23/2007 1:38:16 AM
What about hyper speed.  I'm working on a story about three astronauts who pilot the first space ship to travel in hyper speed.  How can I explain how the astronauts' hyper drive works and make their space craft enter hyper space?
 
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Treadgar       7/23/2007 10:13:41 AM
There are books out there about FTL travel, some of them put together by real life physicists. One of them I've read is Faster Than Light Loopholes In Physics, by Nick Herbert Ph.D. You might get some ideas from something like that. Warning he lets you know the immense problems involved. I for one have a tendency to be turned off by super luminal drives since I have so much respect for the ultimate speed limit, the speed of light.  But if I had to pick some of the super luminal drives I've enjoyed through scifi, one of my favorites is the system used by C.J. Cherryh in her merchanter books. She gives vague hints of how it works, and the way she does it sounds good. 

Treadgar
 
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