EMP and ion cannons

[Priest4hire]

Yeah, it does seem safe to assume that they would use larger ions than Hydrogen. Of course, that would reduce penetration. For radiation, penetration is based on the probability of the particle will strike an atom while passing through the object. The smaller the particle the less likely it will hit something, and thus the greater the penetration. The particle (ion) beam would have such large particles that 100% would impact the atoms at a very minimal depth.

[Lycanthrope]

Well as for the ion drive, thats the idea of a TIE fighter. TIE stands for Twin Ion Engine, not only that but Jet Propultion Laberatory is working on an Ionic Engine experiment currently. Its ideal since it uses up matter on a relatively small scale and can run off of electricity. A photon drive is also possible, though it would take a damn powerful laser. But given a fusion drive, its possible. However even a normal nuklear reaction wouldn't be sufficient to power a laser of a magnetude to move anything at the scale. However the power of light is manifest in the fact that Mercury's orbit was noticably altered by the force of the suns light. They took into account the physical solar wind but couldn't figure out what was altering the orbit the extra amount until they took into account the light itself. One major idea for interstellar travel is a sun sale, though this wouldn't work unless you had a supernova at your back.

[Priest4hire]

Heh, the solar sailor, eh? That was always a rather cool idea.

Here's an interesting, if probably unlikely, propulsion solution: The Electrodynamic Field Generator According to these guys, the EFG can generate reactionless propulsion through the manipulation of EM fields. They've then hypothesized that this drive would be able to achieve faster than light travel via the generation of a wormhole. The power of the EM field at near-lightspeed should warp space, and the generation of exotic matter due to the ship approaching the Schwarzschild radius is supposed to stabilize said wormhole.

[Lycanthrope]

Tell them to read Newton's third law. No such thing as a reactionless drive, there can't be. However, the idea of a space-time warp has always been one of my favorites (go Gene Rodinberry, man ahead of your time!). Yes, the problem comes down to one of negative energy, how to produce it, and how to contain it. The wormhole idea is less substantial, although some quantum physics supports it. If you opened a wormhole, how would you control where the other side went? However the use of Gravatix Surfing, if we are now talking about things that are so beyond our current technology that not our grandchildren will ever see them, is also a possibility. Manipulate the field of space time so that a gravity well the size of your ship is forever right in front of you, and hold on as your ship begins its eternal decent. as you approach the speed of light, your mass increases, and your gravatational attraction also increases. While its questionable whether or not you will ever reach the speed of light, it would take a while to reach high speeds using this, as gravity is the weakest of all forces, but it has the advantage of becoming more powerful even as inertia increases.

hey im a computer programmer, not a nuklear physicist, throw me a frickin bone here!

[VirgoSHaka]

And I thought the third law was only valid where contact forces were present.

[Lycanthrope]

If its not pushing against something physical, its pushing against space time, and through that, all of reality. Sorry Tark, before I turned into a music/RPG/history nerd, I was a physics nerd. That lasted until I learned math and physics could not be sepperated... but I don't forget useless information, apparently, and here it is.

[Priest4hire]

How the StarDrive Field Generator works: To produce electrically-developed thrust, a StarDrive vessel's power system uses electrostatic induction and thermionic emission principles to create an ultra-high potential difference across the hull and to initiate a huge rotor current that shunts electron charge to the hull's peripheral emitter ring ? until the ship is completely enclosed in an impenetrable bubble of electric arc.
In doing so, the electrons comprising this electric Field envelope current are accelerated to very nearly the speed of light, and because of the hull's radial symmetry the Field envelope is split into two hemitoroidal electron current streams (as shown above) which are mutually opposed as they strike the positive central collector sections of the hull. As mathematically verified in the Patent, with sufficient current density the relativistic mass of these two currents can provide impulse thrust of nearly 2 'gee' simply from a controlled variable imbalance in the continuous physical force of their impact with the central collectors!
[It must be pointed out that this type of propulsion is the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program's very definition of a 'diametric drive', which functions by "creating an asymmetric field of force around itself without expelling reaction mass" and whose top speed would be limited only by relativity. Wikipedia adds this: "It is unknown whether it is even physically possible to create such a field." As you can see, it now surely is . . .]
In other words - if these two external Field currents were of equal magnitude, no net force would be developed. However, if the "lower" current stream is much stronger than the "upper", the vessel will be propelled away from the stronger current - in the "upward" direction. And since there is no 'backward' exhaust produced, this type of thrust is truly reactionless in nature. [The collectors are sectored for directional control, which is achieved by varying the proportional current conducted by various sectors.]
Since the electric acceleration achieved by Field current electrons is purely a function of the applied Field voltage, and must remain subjectively constant despite any increase in the velocity of the vessel itself, the thrust produced will rise 'in phase' with vessel velocity - increasing asymptotically with speed and yielding a constant level of vessel acceleration despite the relativistic rise in its apparent mass.
Thus, a StarDrive Field Generator vessel would theoretically be capable of traveling faster-than-light "locally" - from the subjective point of view of any onboard instrumentation or crew - by asymptotically approaching the speed of light to within an arbitrarily small increment until certain relativistic conditions arise which allow the formation of a local Kerr metric space warp {pdf} (as discussed further below).

I'm feeling lazy tonight, so I figured I'd let the site speak for itself regarding what makes this thing reactionless. I agree though, it must push against something in order to accelerate.

[Lycanthrope]

Well... its a little odd. And I find it suspicious that the ship is "logically" been shaped into a flying sauser. If I had the energy to check their patent, I would. The first part is rather mumbo-jumbo-ish. phrases like "ultra-high potential difference" are always suspect in my oppinion. My final doubt is that, with all of my current knowledge of trivia, etc, that I haven't heard of this before today, and as my dad subscribes to Scientific American, I'd have been sure to have heard of it. However, I make no claims to be a electrodynamics expert. I have one or two technical problems, which might be solved easily enough, though it would shoot their claim to reactionlessness to pieces. one major one is they claim that the excess heat can be used for "comertial power generation," for which purpose the distribution of the heat to a central source would require superconducters we do not have, as would most of their technology as I can see it. However most of their concepts are sound enough, and the Kerr Warp is the same thing as Grav-Surfing (the technical term), and is a well respected, if as of yet impossible, means to subjectively travel faster than the speed of light.

[Priest4hire]

Hehe. You forgot to mention that they are trying to sell a book out of this. Yeah, it's pretty suspicious. The patent looks real, though it's just for the dynamo, and not the propulsion or anything like that. And even if they are accurate, the technology to actually build a craft from this is pretty far off.

Still, it makes good Sci-Fi fodder. I'm not about to buy the book, but I get a kick out of it. Who knows, perhaps I'll write a story sometime with that method of faster than light travel in it.

And the concept of the propulsion is interesting. Even if it couldn't go FTL, it might be a good way to get around the solar system. If it could work that is.

As an odd note, that's basically how the warp engines from Star Trek are supposed to work. At least, according to the Next Generation Technical Manual.