The end of Handwavium and Unobtainium?

[MR TEK]

Thoughts taken from a post on "Mommy where does the Hydrogen go when we jump?"

The three irreducible bits of handwavium that are required to create the Traveller universe may have gone away. I have a theory that if other people agree replaces the handwavium drastically and removes unobtainium entirely.

[FONT=&quot]Maybe there is no J-space at all, and the release of such an intense plasma field rips normal space apart and tunnels you through to your destination, with a half life of 168 hours give or take before it is cool enough for normal space to reabsorb it. Lets go a bit further. The j-drive and the fusion plant do not use the Hydrogen AT ALL. There is no giant super-heated fusion reaction within the ship at all.

The hydrogen is expelled in a controlled pattern around the ship, and when it is ignited, the lanthanum grid catalyses the hydrogen magnifying the temperature within the plasma to some insane temperature that nature can only archive only in the very core of black holes.

Stutter warp, and early less efficient J-drives that did not use a lanthanum grid, either doped the plasma with lanthanum, or another impurity, so that it took more hydrogen to create a plasma a few kazillion degrees. The ONLY handwavium involved is accepting that the lanthanum provides the catylist nessisary to work.

No super high temperatures and unobtainium vessels to contain it, sudden conversion from a normal fusion reaction to this sudden flash of energy. The drive itself is just the mechanism to release and control the hydrogen and ignite it. Since lanthanum is an element we already know exists.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]From the Wikipedia on Lanthanum:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Uses-[/FONT]
Lanthanum oxide and the boride are used in electronic vacuum tubes as hot cathode materials with strong emissivity of electrons. Crystals of LaB6 are used in high brightness, extended life, thermionic electron emission sources for scanning electron microscopes.

In Gas tungsten arc welding electrodes, as a substitute for radioactivethorium.
Hydrogen sponge alloys can contain lanthanum. These alloys are capable of storing up to 400 times their own volume of hydrogen gas in a reversible adsorption process.

Petroleum cracking catalysts.

The article also lists it as a catalyst or a reactive agent in a number of processes.
[FONT=&quot]
The second great bit of handwavium is artificial gravity:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]There are already theories that artificially generating and controlling gravity might be a possibility,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Since gravity is a property of mass, and inertia is also a property of mass, they are likely interrelated enough that if you can manipulate one, developing the other will be easier.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Inertial dampers, grave plate drives, and similar devices would be developed from the base technology.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]There are already theories on the net that claim a drive could be made that pushes against the whole universe, and don’t require a nearby gravity well. Those theories have all been discredited, but they probably developed from a misunderstanding, or bad math, and not from completely whole cloth.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Finally, fusion.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We have already made gains in fusion research. We will certainly be able to create working plants on a large scale within decades, if not sooner. Making them smaller over time will occur, we just have no idea yet what the theoretical limits of power to weight ratio might be.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]While a reporting error discredited the initial cold fusion results, it is getting possible again to pursue that line. Last I heard was that some labs could reproduce the results and some could not. The original experimental data, did suggest a net energy gain, and the helium isotopes detected that match the isotopes fusion theory expects.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]These are the big three. The handwaves that people find hardest to accept that are required to make a Traveller universe function.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The other techs that are used, autonomous robots, anagathics, meson beam and particle beam weapons and others are readily accepted as abstraction from current tech.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Frankly, the scanners that can pick up the heat of a candle a parsec away are a MUCH bigger problem for me.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]And there has not been a single economic theory presented that is anything more than pulled out of somebody’s butt. Come on, trickle down economics and the laffler curve are still held up as valid theories after being so thoroughly discredited. Current economics is far less well understood than people pretend it is.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Political systems are the same. No single political system has ever remained as stable as the third imperium. We can not even fathom a political system that could unite spate star systems in the first place, let alone keep them stable for any length of time.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Just my thoughts. [/FONT]

Many of these ideas have appeared separately, but as I was discussing the hydrogen cloud from jump, they suddenly seemed to all come to me at once.

As always, YMMV, use at you own risk, do not pass go or collect 200cr.

 

[Gallowglacht]

Sorry but its still a handwave. If the explaination works better for you, run with it and enjoy...How do you know the conditions in a black hole? How do you know recreating them would make a jump drive? And why would it matter to the enjoyment of the game?

Any explainations that help suspension of disbelief are welcome. But Handwaves aren't so bad as long as they are fun.

 

[flykiller]

... this sudden flash of energy.

that's putting it mildly.

I don't think you'd want to do this at 100d from any inhabited planet. and if the ship is in the center of this fusion detonation and space ripping, and survives, that's a handwave in and of itself.

 

[atpollard]

I don't think you'd want to do this at 100d from any inhabited planet. and if the ship is in the center of this fusion detonation and space ripping, and survives, that's a handwave in and of itself.

We already have experience with directed force explosions - look at the tank driver surrounded by reactive armor. The "external explosion jump drive" is unlikely, but not inconcievable. How is this WORSE than performing the exact same fusion reaction inside a 3 meter cube located INSIDE the ship?

MrTEK admitted that it was a handwave, he claimed that it removed the "unobtainium".

 

[su_liam]

Read Project Orion by George Dyson. Worse than that, Orion drives direct the force of a nuclear bomb at the ship. OUCH!!!

 

[flykiller]

We already have experience with directed force explosions - look at the tank driver surrounded by reactive armor.

the explosion he's talking about is several dozen orders of magnitude greater. if a ship can be damaged by mere lasers then the explosion he proposes may leave a dent in the hull, not to mention a major crater on any nearby planets. it would make a dandy fleet weapon too.

The "external explosion jump drive" is unlikely, but not inconcievable. How is this WORSE than performing the exact same fusion reaction inside a 3 meter cube located INSIDE the ship?

I didn't say it was worse, but I'll say it now. asserting that "the fusion takes place inside that container" doesn't spawn further problems - it's all in the container, the only issue left is whether or not you believe it, that's the end of it. asserting that "the fusion takes place all at once around the ship" spawns further problems and all kinds of consequences that must be accounted for before the game can even be played. all handwaves are not equal.

what all that hydrogen is for is a major issue in and of itself, always has been. but I have a solution. some weeks ago someone proposed a starship operator's manual contest, and I've been working on one since. it's taking longer than I thought but I've already addressed the jump fuel issue. I'll post it when it's ready.

 

[shadowdragon]

MT and T20 both stipulate the jump drive is a type of powerplant, and the hydrogen is fuel for that power generating process. The jump grid is powered by the jump drive "powerplant" to create the jump field. T20 states that a portion of the jump drive is actually capacitors, in MT i cannot find a reference for that but lets run with it. Capacitors are designed to store energy and release it all rapidly. Pulling power from capacitors in increments is difficult to say the least.

The jump drive is engaged and begins generating a large amount of power. Lets say it pulls a portion of the H fuel for power generation, charging the capacitors. The capacitors are discharged into the jump grid and the process repeats. The jump drive must charge the capacitors as soon as they discharge, creating a triangle waveform for the power (./|/|/|.). If some of the j-drive capacitors are used as a filter instead you will get a pulsed dc waveform with triangular characteristics (^^^^^^^). The more filtering you use will decrease the pulse of the waveform, smoothing it out to a truer dc waveform (---------). Since most of the jump fuel is burned at the initiation of the jump, it either is used for cooling the j-drive and/or j-grid, the j-drive generates more power to initiate the jump field and then slows down to maintain it (conservation of momentum?), or as some propose its used to actually create the field around the ship to protect it from j-space intrusions. In any case, the additional fuel requirements for j-drives do actually make sense.

According to T20 a 200 dTon starship requires 80% of the jump fuel - 20 dTons - to initiate the jump- 16 dTons. The remaining fuel is burned during jump, equating to about 19% or more of the jump fuel, depending on actual jump duration (T20 states a small amount remains after a standard jump). This equates to approximately .0238095 dTons per hour calculated from a 168 hour jump.

so while we handwave the physics of jumpdrives, at least how they work can be made to make sense. even the fact that power requirements are based on volume rather than mass makes a sort of sense as you have to open a bigger hole to admit a larger volume, but mass is irrelevant.

on a side note- tl9 j-1 drive burns 8 times as much fuel per hour as a tl9 fusion plant rated to generate the same EP the j-drive requires to operate in T20.
This could be seen as while the j-1 drive of a 200 dTon ship requires 2 EP it generates 16 EP per turn based entirely on the hourly fuel consumption. Given its stated to be an inefficient system, we could state it only generates a portion of that, but in any case not more. this also leads to the possibility of using a j-drive as an emergency powerplant for the ship.......... each j-drive rating generates 44.44% of the EP that the j-drive capacitors can hold, except again for j-6 which generates 88.89% of the EP its capacitors can hold. J-6 appears to be a rather unstable system.

and of course at tl15 j-6 jumps from burning 8 times as much fuel to burning 16 times the fuel of a tl 15 fusion plant. go figure.