Stray Hydrogen Atoms Become Deadly for Starships Traveling at Light Speed

Popular Science ^ | 2/17/2010 | Jeremy Hsu

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Science fiction writers may have to rethink how their starship crews survive travel near or beyond the speed of light. Even the occasional hydrogen atom floating in the interstellar void would become a lethal radiation beam that would kill human crews in mere seconds and destroy a spacecraft's electronics, New Scientist reports.

Just a few stray wisps of hydrogen gas -- fewer than two hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter on average -- would translate into 7 teraelectron volts for a starship crew traveling at 99.999998 percent of the speed of light. That's as much fun for humans as standing in front of the proton beam created by the Large Hadron Collider, according to William Edelstein, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University.

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Tags Science, Jeremy Hsu, hydrogen, interstellar space travel, light speed, spaceships, star trek, starships, warp speedEdelstein added that the radiation dose would reach 10,000 sieverts within a second; the fatal radiation dose for humans is just 6 sieverts. He predicted that any extraterrestrials who might have created starships capable of such high speeds might have died upon their inaugural voyages, and New Scientist adds a preliminary funeral note for Kirk, Spock and the rest of Star Trek's USS Enterprise crew traveling at warp speeds.

But hold on a second. The warp speed concept of Star Trek supposedly involves manipulating space-time, so that the actual starship travels in a bubble of normal space-time.

[Spktyr]

A double-ended Orion drive starship would appear to be the appropriate answer at our current level of technology.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I agree with you.

[Talisker]

A double-ended Orion drive starship would appear to be the appropriate answer at our current level of technology.

Deceleration, yes. But wouldn't that retard initial forward acceleration?

[Future Snake Eater]

Federation starships have navigation shields for just these kinds of things.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

[American Constitutionalist]

Hey ? as long as that stray atom can cook my eggs and bacon in 5 seconds flat, I 2’nd the agreement with you...

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

You are correct. It also mentioned it in the article

[bsf2009]

I choose the freezarinos, even if it takes longer.

[Spktyr]

Somewhat. On the other hand, nothing, and I mean NOTHING known to human science is going to be getting through the giant bow shield/pusher plate.

As Project Rho puts it, even hitting the pusher plate with a contact-fused thermonuclear fusion warhead won’t do anything.: “If you are attacking an Orion drive spacecraft with nuclear warheads, they will just point their pusher plate at the missiles and laugh at you.”

Best part - it could be built using 1960s technology.

[American Constitutionalist]

A gadgetrometer might solve the problem of the stray atom... it’s worth a try.

[HiTech RedNeck]

something to think of as you travel through the stars

[American Constitutionalist]

" something to think of as you travel through the stars "

Yeah, but, watch out for that stray atom that will flow through your mind on that warp speed, no , wait, it's quantum speed.

[BigCinBigD]

Indeed. What do they think those big dish's on the front of the engineering hulls are for. Satellite TV?

[chessplayer]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18532-starship-pilots-speed-kills-especially-warp-speed.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=space

Read the comments. Very interesting.

[Spktyr]

I’ll put my faith in the meters-thick pusher plate/shield, thanks anyway. :P

[count-your-change]

But as our traveler's speed increased to a significant percentage of light speed his mass would correspondingly increase and the the stray hydrogen atom would be little more than an insect on the windscreen.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Remember, the interstellar space is vastly composed of hydrogen. A proposal called an interstellar ramjet was to scoop this hydrogen and spit it out the back as thrust.

[maddog55]

I know hydrogen atoms floating in the interstellar void screw the grill up on my truck when I hit 85mph so I can imagine what it would do at light speed.

[mitch5501]

I remember reading about that way back.Unfortunately the scoops needed to be huge (miles across) due to the scarcity of atoms in sufficient numbers to produce thrust.

Another form of thrust I remember was along the lines of detonating a hydrogen bomb directly behind a suitably armor plated spacecraft.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

That is the Orion project and would of worked.

[mitch5501]

Right.

What stopped it,treaty on nukes in space?

Would have been some out of this world acceleration!

[BulletBobCo]

I channel surfed past dancing with the stars really fast one time.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Yes. The 1963 Test Ban Treaty and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

A little factoid. 90 percent of all the atoms in the cosmos is hydrogen.

[Malsua]

>>>Science fiction writers may have to rethink how their starship crews survive travel near or beyond the speed of light<<<

Larry Niven covered this years ago. The Bussard ramjet at the front of the ship channels the hydrogen into the fusion reaction. A massive magnetic bubble has to be in a certain spot to protect the crew. Anywhere else on the ship and the radiation is BEYOND intense. The ship “Long Pass” can be described here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=yCHLeej8jEwC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=Larry+Niven+%22long+pass%22+ramjet&source=bl&ots=UCc4F7vdHe&sig=DslOiZNHW4ecNoFSyP0LWIxrP60&hl=en&ei=MBx9S5v-I-aA8QbW9MjoBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

[Rummenigge]

What are we waiting for ? Let’s build this.

[djf]

But all the equations tell us nothing except light can travel at light speed.

So it is an asinine, oxymoronic conjecture in the first place.

[mikey_hates_everything]

At those speeds wouldn’t you need total shielding to protect against high-speed atoms coming at you from the sides? They would miss the forward shield and hit at a fraction of the forward velocity but still have enough energy to kill and fry electronics. A solar flare going off nearby could provide a lateral or incidental high-speed stream which, at its own velocity, would kill or injure. More reason it’s going to be a long, long time before humans get way out there.

[Falcon4.0]

Two words solve this problem.

"Navigational Deflectors."

[ruiner]

Obviously all we’d have to do is fly in between the hydrogen ;)

[cizinec]

Just use the damn Stargate.

[Recon Dad]

Mister Scot, full power to the front shields! Aye Captain!

(there taken care of)

[ASA Vet]

But all the equations tell us nothing except light can travel at light speed. So it is an asinine, oxymoronic conjecture in the first place.

Right, and man can never travel more than 50 miles per hour in one of those demonic steam engines. That speed would tear him apart. So lets stop trying, and just use a horse.

[Spktyr]

It’s nuclear powered. The greenies won’t let us get anywhere near construction of it.

Which is sad because a large (10,000 ton) Orion drive ship can carry 5300 tons - that’s right, TONS - from Earth orbit to Mars orbit *and back to Earth*. To give you an example of the speed the drive has, it could take you from Earth to Pluto and back to Earth in less than a year, while carrying hundreds of tons in supplies.

And we could have built one that massed eight million tons with 1960s technology. Alpha Centauri, anyone?

[Spktyr]

Well, there’s some thought that a forward plate in the interstellar medium would cause a sort of ‘wake’ in what we’re seeing outside the sun’s bow-shock area that would provide protection. However, one could also generate magnetic shielding (again, with 60s tech) and provide shielding.

[Londo Molari]

“Deceleration, yes. But wouldn’t that retard initial forward acceleration?”

I see no reason to use the “R-word”.

[pappyone]

“...would translate into 7 teraelectron volts for a starship crew traveling at 99.999998 percent of the speed of light.”

Could be the clean energy solution we’ve been looking for.

[Rummenigge]

Maybe we did build it...

[mad_as_he$$]

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Navigational_deflector

[mad_as_he$$]

Except that there are recent experiments that indicate Einstein may have been wrong.

http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/V17NO1PDF/V17N1GIF.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_speed_of_light

Anyway ti does not matter since the first FTL drive will be worm hole drive.

[GingisK]

In my science fiction of FTL, the wormhole is devoid of any matter. That is just the way it is with my starship. Get over it.

[Onelifetogive]

That's as much fun for humans as standing in front of the proton beam created by the Large Hadron Collider, according to William Edelstein, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University.

That's much better. I can really understand that analogy. If I had a Nickel for every time I have seen someone standing in front of the proton beam created by the Large Hadron Collider, I'd be a rich man.

[GonzoGOP]

Note due to the laws of physics no ship can exceed one half the speed of its rocket exhaust. Since the exhaust can't exceed the speed of light the fastest a ship can go is .5C. So none of this matters unless someone invents a reactionless drive, and there are more than a few rules of physics that say that is also impossible.

As for an Orion, they are the coolest thing ever to come out of the mad science department. However their exhaust velocity is only 43,000 meters per second. As a comparison the Space Shuttle Main Engine is less than one tenth of that. But the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. So the fastest that an Orion drive can go is .00007C. Great for a quick run out to Jupiter or Mars, but not interstellar. No need to worry about hydrogen atoms at that speed.

[count-your-change]

Sounds good but it would take a very large scoop since there is about one hydrogen atom per cubic centimeter unless they are in one of the gas “clouds”.

[dfwgator]

That’s why they invented the Infinite Improbability Drive.

[Mad Dawgg]

"That’s why they invented the Infinite Improbability Drive."

That Drive is soo last millenium...

Everyone knows the "Bistromathic Drive" powers all the cool cat's star ships...

[American Constitutionalist]

Is that pusher plate/shield lead ?

[ColdWater]

Note due to the laws of physics no ship can exceed one half the speed of its rocket exhaust. Since the exhaust can't exceed the speed of light the fastest a ship can go is .5C.

If the ship reaches 1/2c and is ejecting exhaust at 1c, then how is momentum conserved if it does not accererate?

[Spktyr]

There are lots of different materials it can be made of. Lead is one of them, and would form at least one or multiple layers in other designs.