someone correct me...

[P88]

if a spaceship was travelling at the speed of light, you wouldnt be able to see it, as light wouldn't be able to escape from it, and it would collapse into itself and become a black hole? and to reach the speed of light would require infinite energy?...theres the energy for your black hole?

im just bored.

[Apothos]

The reason you wouldnt see the spaceship is because to see it light has to bounce off it, and since its going the speed of light, the chances of you noticing the extremely short period of time when light does actually bounce off of it into your view are slim.

[P88]

how fast would you go if you got a nuclear bomb, look at diagram below:
______________________________
|                                                    \******** ------>
|                                                      \************* ----->
|  front                                  back     |************* -------->
|                                                       /**************-->
|                                                     /*********------>
|                                                   / ***********-------->
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

and engineered it so it only exploded out the back? like in the diagram? if it could be done it would create a shit load of propulsion....sending the ship in one direction at high speed.

[ElectricMonk]

if a spaceship was travelling at the speed of light, you wouldnt be able to see it, as light wouldn't be able to escape from it, and it would collapse into itself and become a black hole? and to reach the speed of light would require infinite energy?...theres the energy for your black hole?

im just bored.

You would be able to see your spaceship as light would still reflect from it's surface.

You're talking about a gigantic gravitational attraction. I see where you're coming from, because you're saying it's mass would increase to near infinite proportions as it approached the speed of light (and infinite at LS). Unfortunately, this is according to Einstein's theory of relativity, which is now regarded as an imperfect theory.

Think of it like this: There are particles called tachyons that travel faster than light, and these don't show an infinite mass to break the light barrier, if they did, they would be black holes in themselves.

What you have to remember is that a black-hole is an ultra-dense stellar object that has collapsed in on itself, like taking the sun and squeezing it into the size of a football (although it's not accurate, you get the idea). If your ship was travelling at the speed of light, it would gain in mass, but there would still be the same number of particles present in the actual ship, so while it's gaining mass, it's not actually gaining physical mass, it's just getting heavier. So it would have the same gravitational field as it would at sublight speeds.

Although I get the feeling that I may be wrong, anyone care to offer another perspective? PJK?

[~Lonowski~]

that would require partial containment, and redirection of a nuclear bomb, sounds easier said than done

[Apothos]

Fast? You would create a large amount of thrust thats for sure. The problem would be containing/directing the blast...and slowing down. :)

[Scarecrow]

Mass and weight are two totally different things in a 0g environment. Weight doesn't exist.

In 0g what weighs more......a ton of lead or a ton of feathers? Which one has the denser mass?

[P88]

to slow down you fit one on the front of the ship

you would only feel like 1000+G for say...1 second.. if your not dead but you could always get in those tubes filled with water, as water cannot be crushed you would be safe? or to slow down you catch solar particals on those solar sails, would take like 100 years to slow down from that speed, but you gotta start somewhere

[ElectricMonk]

Mass and weight are two totally different things in a 0g environment. Weight doesn't exist.

In 0g what weighs more......a ton of lead or a ton of feathers? Which one has the denser mass?

Was that a response to my post?

If it was, then it was just a way of saying the object gains mass without gaining physical mass

[Scarecrow]

Yup

[ElectricMonk]

Cool

[P88]

or to sort out the G Force problem, you get a complete cylinder, and spin rings round the outside of it at like 100000 rpm (maybe faster?) so that creates a magnetic force round the outside, i read about this somewhere but i may have said it wrong, if i remember it said you could make it so you couldnt feel the effect of gravity outside the cylinder inside the cylinder, so inside the cylinder you would feel NO gforce no matter how fast you accellerated/slowed down so if you got the nuke-engine working...it would be a painless trip alll the way to mars =]

i am probably wrong, as i said i read it somewhere, cant remember exactly though

[Scarecrow]

[P88]

and i think the spinning rings need to be positive charged, or negative, i forgot

[Tiberian Commander]

ME THINKS

[Tiberian Commander]

how fast would you go if you got a nuclear bomb, look at diagram below:
______________________________
| \******** ------>
| \************* ----->
| front back |************* -------->
| /**************-->
| /*********------>
| / ***********-------->
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

and engineered it so it only exploded out the back? like in the diagram? if it could be done it would create a shit load of propulsion....sending the ship in one direction at high speed.

IF THAT DID WORK THE RADIATION WILL KILL YOU

[fireblade]

as far as i know tachyons are made up particles (startrek fiction etc.) or at least they were last time i checked i suppose its possible some has discovered somthing new since then and called it a tachyon since then.

or to sort out the G Force problem, you get a complete cylinder, and spin rings round the outside of it at like 100000 rpm (maybe faster?) so that creates a magnetic force round the outside, i read about this somewhere but i may have said it wrong, if i remember it said you could make it so you couldnt feel the effect of gravity outside the cylinder inside the cylinder, so inside the cylinder you would feel NO gforce no matter how fast you accellerated/slowed down so if you got the nuke-engine working...it would be a painless trip alll the way to mars =]

i am probably wrong, as i said i read it somewhere, cant remember exactly though

first G forces dont necesarily have anything to do with gravity is just a measurement of acceleration or force

e.g

1g is one times the force/acceleration due to of gravity (around 9.8m/s*s or 9.8 N/kg),
2g is two times,
3g three times
etc.

im not 100% about the rotating rings but i think while you may be able to create an antigravity effect in this way though im not sure if it would work at all
if you could create a magnetic field strong enough to do this withough you having to carry lumps of metal around could certainly have interesting (if not fatal) effects on your body.
secondly i think that while the device might protect you from g-forces it would just squash you instead unless it has some strange effect on basic newtonian physics.

fluid filled chambers or hydrostasis units which is what they are generaly called in fiction where they are usually combined with some kind of hybernation unit for long journies would give you a segnificant increase in the g-forces you can withstand because of the buffering effect they give against accelerations. like the modern fuild/gel based g-suits for figher pilots do though exactly how much im not sure

the nuke engine has a name its called and orion drive or at least its called that in lots of fiction but i think there are actual theories on how to construct one. and compared to a chemical rocket the thrust is signeficantly better

but you would do better going for a fusion drive or buzzard ramjet as they are better and hydrogen is easer to get hold of (or they would be when we can get fusion cores to work)
via buzzard collectors though its still painfully slow when compared to te distances between stars.

[fireblade]

how fast would you go if you got a nuclear bomb, look at diagram below:
______________________________
| \******** ------>
| \************* ----->
| front back |************* -------->
| /**************-->
| /*********------>
| / ***********-------->
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

and engineered it so it only exploded out the back? like in the diagram? if it could be done it would create a shit load of propulsion....sending the ship in one direction at high speed.

IF THAT DID WORK THE RADIATION WILL KILL YOU

no it wouldnt
can anyone say lead shielding ?
also its directed explosions thefore the blast and most of the radiation is directed away from you

plus with the amount of radiation already flying around in space you could probably call it a drop in the ocean

[pjknibbs]

Although I get the feeling that I may be wrong, anyone care to offer another perspective? PJK?

I could ask the chap at work who has an astrophysics degree, but my own take is that, although the ship's mass increases to infinity as it approaches light speed, THIS IS ONLY IN THE VIEW OF SOMEBODY WHO IS STANDING STILL. If you were actually inside the ship you wouldn't notice any difference in the ship itself, although the rest of the universe would appear to have gone slightly crazy from your viewpoint. That's kind of the whole point of relativity theory--it all depends on your point of view (or frame of reference, to use the posh terminology).

[RustiSwordz]

And it doesnt matter how much you discuss it because WE WONT SEE IT IN OUR TIME, so get over it......