All Questions
Tagged with engineering spaceships
46 questions
10
votes
11
answers
1k
views
Constraints on distributing power to spaceship systems
The problem of power management in a sci-fi spaceship for the purpose of powering various ship systems is commonly represented in TV shows like Star Trek and video games. Recently, I noticed an ...
- 567
1
vote
1
answer
227
views
The power plant of the ark ship in the form of a black hole
I would like to warn you right away that I’m new here and not very proficient in English, so there may be some mistakes in my question.
I am developing a science fiction book where I want to move away ...
- 19
4
votes
6
answers
413
views
How would you get a ship out of a gravity well?
Context
I'm helping a friend with a hard sci-fi story and we ran into an issue. In this setting the technology for absurdly powerful and efficient fusion drives which seem not to have heat managment ...
- 111
5
votes
2
answers
768
views
What would destroying an antimatter ship look like?
The Backstory
The ship in question is a massive matter-antimatter annihilation powered starship, built by an imperialist and tyrannical government with basically unlimited budget.
The Ship
The ...
- 1,994
4
votes
5
answers
297
views
How to make a good landing pad for a start-up colony
Due to the expansion of humanity into the stars, landing pads have popped up on every planet with even a remote resemblance of a permanent human presence, whether they start with a dozen or a thousand ...
- 1,376
2
votes
2
answers
239
views
Can we use magnetic fields to make metalic hydrogen for rocket fuel?
Metallic hydrogen is probably the best possible chemical rocket fuel. It would make single-stage-take-off possible. The trouble is the stuff is extremely hard to contain, and requires exotic fuel ...
- 5,185
15
votes
14
answers
3k
views
Why can my spacefaring civilization maintain, use and even adapt their tech, but not manufacture it themselves?
What could allow a spacefaring civilization to actively construct and maintain ships, stations and weapons, but stop them from actually manufacturing the individual components?
First, let me try to ...
- 957
14
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Pro's and Con's of a starship with a tractor configuration?
I'm working on a lost colony type story where 500 colonists have and their ship went missing in interstellar space. I thought of designing a realistic starship design and kind of remembered a quirk ...
- 567
2
votes
3
answers
167
views
What material should a whipple shield on a lighthugger be made from? [closed]
I read Songs of a Distant Earth and in the book ice-water is used as the shield on a ship that travels close to the speed of light.
Realistically, what material might actually work to protect a ship ...
- 1,983
4
votes
2
answers
190
views
Is a universal land and launch spacecraft theoretically possible?
Nearly every science fiction story features a craft which lands on a planet, allows egress to the surface, and then leaves the planet. Logistics is almost never a part of the story. In considering ...
- 8,209
13
votes
12
answers
5k
views
Why do generation ships have large rectangular shaped portholes instead of round ones?
We know traveling in the vastness of space is very boring, as all galaxies and stars appear as dots against the black emptiness of space. It has been established that portholes play an important role ...
- 48.3k
5
votes
1
answer
99
views
Best design for Plasma Magnet Sail/Catch
What's the best design for a receiving end of a Plasma Sail/Catch.
That is, (ignoring the specific means of how for now), a broadcaster in solar system x sends out a soup of macro-scale particles at a ...
36
votes
27
answers
10k
views
Why are UFOs disk shaped?
What’s the deal with flying saucers? There’s no drag in space, so alien engineers don’t have any limitations placed on them when it comes to ship design. Yet the ships portrayed by media look like ...
- 10.8k
-3
votes
1
answer
141
views
How long could a reasonably fit human pilot survive 5g while not using submersive solutions?
For purposes of this discussion, assume NO use of fluid immersion or increasing the pressure of the breathing gas to counteract the external pressures on the pilot, nor putting the pilot in any kind ...
- 415
3
votes
3
answers
498
views
Would an Antimatter Engine be dangerous to use around people?
I was considering having the spacecraft in my setting use antimatter-matter spacecraft, but then I realised that at least some of the annihilation of protons and electrons with antiprotons and ...
- 739