Mass Effect Relays close to reality!

[FFGF]

I was watching something on the Science chanel about sending maned mission to Mars, and they talked about "Beaming a laser onto a ship and propelling it fast and efficient into space, and when it reaches Mars a second machine would shoot another laser to slow the ship down and these" so that made me think, Wow this is nearly like Mass Relays except we're not travelling at FTL speeds and there are no signs of Reaper life (yet o.o?). I tried looking this up on the internet but the closest I could find is Wireless Energy, basically the same principles but the laser doesn't push this time. Now this might be a misunderstanding on me and what the Science channel was talking about was Wireless Energy, but nonetheless this idea is very close to Mass Relays from Mass Effect; I could also be seriously misunderstanding all of this but oh well. (These Laser would shoot plasma, I remember them saying that a few times)

So is anybody as excited as me about this, how the awesome world of Mass Effect is so close to being nearly true?

link for wireless energy: http://lasermotive.com/technology/power-beaming-overview/

[Pulse95]

By close I hope you mean 500-600 years from now, I mean we only landed on the moon once and people still think it is bullshit. The only way to get to Mars is to either FTL/teleport there or build a giant botanical frigate that can provide life, food, water and last for generations. It also has to have an infinite fuel source and stay in one piece. Since NASA isn't getting much of shit for funding we will NOT see it in our life time.

[Xylord]

It would seem like you were a bit confused. If you could provide a link relating to this program you watched, it would be nice.

The only way I can see lasers being used as means of material propulsion is by using solar sails, IE, sails a few atoms thick and kilometers large, that use photons like a normal sail uses wind. Such sails are possible nowadays, with the introduction of carbon nanotubes and other extra-light composites, and a large, low energy laser could be used to accelerate a sailed ship at a constant rate more efficiently than the sun alone. But by the time we can make such lasers, we may as well make anti-matter engines.

[FFGF]

It would seem like you were a bit confused. If you could provide a link relating to this program you watched, it would be nice.

The only way I can see lasers being used as means of material propulsion is by using solar sails, IE, sails a few atoms thick and kilometers large, that use photons like a normal sail uses wind. Such sails are possible nowadays, with the introduction of carbon nanotubes and other extra-light composites, and a large, low energy laser could be used to accelerate a sailed ship at a constant rate more efficiently than the sun alone. But by the time we can make such lasers, we may as well make anti-matter engines.

It was something about shooting plasma to make a bride of some sort that "acts like two magnets pulling away from each other" that's based in Washington.

[Xylord]

It was something about shooting plasma to make a bride of some sort that "acts like two magnets pulling away from each other" that's based in Washington.

So... They're shooting plasma to make a married woman? o.O

[FFGF]

So... They're shooting plasma to make a married woman? o.O

Well I know about shooting other things into women but not plasma. No the researching facility is based in the state of Washington.

[uranium2011]

By close I hope you mean 500-600 years from now, I mean we only landed on the moon once and people still think it is bullshit. The only way to get to Mars is to either FTL/teleport there or build a giant botanical frigate that can provide life, food, water and last for generations. It also has to have an infinite fuel source and stay in one piece. Since NASA isn't getting much of shit for funding we will NOT see it in our life time.

I personally think the government should get its act together, stop piling up so much debt, and get back to work on space. In theory, who ever "owns" Mars might as well rule the world. Mars is full of helium-3 which is extremely rare on Earth and is valuable. It's also a virgin planet, full of iron, and other untouched precious metals. For all we know, we might find quantities of elements unheard of on Earth. Colonizing Mars might take many generations, but right now, very few nations are in a position to start the race to Mars, we should take advantage of that and take the lead.

In theory, a botanical spacecraft isn't exactly needed. You could set up a base colony by robotic drones. Then send a small spacecraft with the necessary supplies and several astronauts, and have everything waiting on mars. It would be expensive to send several spacecraft with the various parts, modules, and provisions, but the pros outweigh the cons. I don't see why you would need to start up an immediate colony. Start small and work your way up.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-colonize.html

[freakachu]

I was watching something on the Science chanel about sending maned mission to Mars, and they talked about "Beaming a laser onto a ship and propelling it fast and efficient into space, and when it reaches Mars a second machine would shoot another laser to slow the ship down and these" so that made me think, Wow this is nearly like Mass Relays except we're not travelling at FTL speeds and there are no signs of Reaper life (yet o.o?). I tried looking this up on the internet but the closest I could find is Wireless Energy, basically the same principles but the laser doesn't push this time. Now this might be a misunderstanding on me and what the Science channel was talking about was Wireless Energy, but nonetheless this idea is very close to Mass Relays from Mass Effect; I could also be seriously misunderstanding all of this but oh well. (These Laser would shoot plasma, I remember them saying that a few times)

So is anybody as excited as me about this, how the awesome world of Mass Effect is so close to being nearly true?

link for wireless energy: http://lasermotive.com/technology/power-beaming-overview/

this isn't anything like mass effect's mass relays. this is something that has been around for a long time. look up "solar sails" to see what this is essentially doing.

the basic idea is that light exerts a force on an object when it hits and bounces off of it. normally this isn't worth mentioning because gravity and friction and blah blah. in space though, where there is nothing like an atmosphere and no gravity to speak of, that tiny force can add up and actually propel an object if you give it enough surface area to hit. it's a way to get things moving in space without requiring a lot of heavy fuel. of course it's a rather one-way ticket unless you've got something on the receiving end to catch the craft. doing this with lasers is perhaps more efficient or something.

as for mass relays, those are obviously not explained very in depth in mass effect, but the general idea was that they reduced the ship's mass to zero or close to it I believe. that's not even close to shooting lasers at stuff in space.

[FFGF]

this isn't anything like mass effect's mass relays. this is something that has been around for a long time. look up "solar sails" to see what this is essentially doing.

the basic idea is that light exerts a force on an object when it hits and bounces off of it. normally this isn't worth mentioning because gravity and friction and blah blah. in space though, where there is nothing like an atmosphere and no gravity to speak of, that tiny force can add up and actually propel an object if you give it enough surface area to hit. it's a way to get things moving in space without requiring a lot of heavy fuel. of course it's a rather one-way ticket unless you've got something on the receiving end to catch the craft. doing this with lasers is perhaps more efficient or something.

as for mass relays, those are obviously not explained very in depth in mass effect, but the general idea was that they reduced the ship's mass to zero or close to it I believe. that's not even close to shooting lasers at stuff in space.

Well both allow you faster travel and have set points to where they accelerate/decelerate you. Yes I know that there nowhere alike but the ideas are the same, use one to speed up and than use the other near your destination to speed down accordingly.

[Xylord]

this isn't anything like mass effect's mass relays. this is something that has been around for a long time. look up "solar sails" to see what this is essentially doing.

the basic idea is that light exerts a force on an object when it hits and bounces off of it. normally this isn't worth mentioning because gravity and friction and blah blah. in space though, where there is nothing like an atmosphere and no gravity to speak of, that tiny force can add up and actually propel an object if you give it enough surface area to hit. it's a way to get things moving in space without requiring a lot of heavy fuel. of course it's a rather one-way ticket unless you've got something on the receiving end to catch the craft. doing this with lasers is perhaps more efficient or something.

as for mass relays, those are obviously not explained very in depth in mass effect, but the general idea was that they reduced the ship's mass to zero or close to it I believe. that's not even close to shooting lasers at stuff in space.

Thanks for explaining the process on the physical level. :)

[reptar]

The journey to Mars actually requires very little fuel. Because space has no friction, the ship would Only need enough fuel to speed up and slow down, and then it can just coast all the way to mars.

[Xylord]

The journey to Mars actually requires very little fuel. Because space has no friction, the ship would Only need enough fuel to speed up and slow down, and then it can just coast all the way to mars.

But for the travel to be fairly efficient, a pretty damn big quantity of fuel is needed only to accelerate to this cruising speed.

For example, the average orbital speed of a space station around the earth is 22000km/h, this sounds pretty intense, right? And that's about the speed the rockets who get out of the gravitational field of the Earth need. But, when we talk on a solar scale, it's entirely different. The speed of the revolution of the Earth is about 100,000km/h, five times the speed of the space station! It's only an estimate, but I'm pretty sure that a rocket going to Mars would have to accelerate for a few hours to get this cruising speed. But obviously, it doesn't keep pushing all the way, once you get to the cruising speed, you can just shut down the engines.

[FFGF]

The journey to Mars actually requires very little fuel. Because space has no friction, the ship would Only need enough fuel to speed up and slow down, and then it can just coast all the way to mars.

Yes we all know that, but most people would like to go as fast as they can to get there faster.

[Pulse95]

The journey to Mars actually requires very little fuel. Because space has no friction, the ship would Only need enough fuel to speed up and slow down, and then it can just coast all the way to mars.

You can, but it would take ages. You can't just flip a ship around and land it, it has to 'hook' into the planets orbit and slowly make its way down. This step takes tonnes of engine Fuel and RCS duct fuel. The best way to do this is to first build a base on the moon by using a space elevator and use the new moon base as a launch area which would save fuel. Once that step is complete you can make a Mars base and transport things between them. This is just a small summary of what will happen 500-900 years from now depending on how much stupider the governments of Earth become.

[Munaus]

You can't just flip a ship around and land it, it has to 'hook' into the planets orbit and slowly make its way down.

Liar! Thundering typhoons! Are you telling me that Tintin has got it all wrong?

[Xylord]

Liar! Thundering typhoons! Are you telling me that Tintin has got it all wrong?

My childhood... I lost its heartbeat...

[MephistosChan]

OK, you definitely can accelerate all the way to the halfway point, flip over and decelerate nicely into a Mars landing trajectory. In general we don't have anything nearly powerful and efficient enough in the way of propulsion although the nuclear NERVA program could possibly have done it. Ion propulsion is looking good and is in use now, efficiency is high but actual force is low, the Casimir program is working to improve things, although it would probably require launching nuclears which is a massive political no no.

There are many perfectly reasonable plans for Mars exploration missions using today's technology and these only require the political will to instigate and see through, the physics and engineering are well established. In fact get a copy of 'The Case for Mars' by Robert Zubrin, it is getting on now but it shows what could have been done with Shuttle technology.

Pulse95...I have no idea where you get any of your 'information'. FTL to get to Mars? They've just landed a SUV sized rover there, flight time was months not years, there are favourable low power transits every 2 years. FTL, teleportation or giant botanical frigates with infinite fuel supplies, bollocks. Try backing people like Musk and Bigelow, they've got the technology to do it now.

[okamikk]

OK, you definitely can accelerate all the way to the halfway point, flip over and decelerate nicely into a Mars landing trajectory. In general we don't have anything nearly powerful and efficient enough in the way of propulsion although the nuclear NERVA program could possibly have done it. Ion propulsion is looking good and is in use now, efficiency is high but actual force is low, the Casimir program is working to improve things, although it would probably require launching nuclears which is a massive political no no.

There are many perfectly reasonable plans for Mars exploration missions using today's technology and these only require the political will to instigate and see through, the physics and engineering are well established. In fact get a copy of 'The Case for Mars' by Robert Zubrin, it is getting on now but it shows what could have been done with Shuttle technology.

Pulse95...I have no idea where you get any of your 'information'. FTL to get to Mars? They've just landed a SUV sized rover there, flight time was months not years, there are favourable low power transits every 2 years. FTL, teleportation or giant botanical frigates with infinite fuel supplies, bollocks. Try backing people like Musk and Bigelow, they've got the technology to do it now.

and how do you plan to survive on mars without the giant botanical frigates, eh?!

[The_DarthMoogle]

I'm just gonna be like tl;dr and dump this here

http://www.islandone.org/Propulsion/ProjectOrion.html

I don't see how we could power anything bigger than a shuttle, all the way from launchpad to Mars.

If you're going to do something well, you should only do it once.

[MephistosChan]

and how do you plan to survive on mars without the giant botanical frigates, eh?!

I going to assume you live miles from the sea and don't know a frigate is a type of ship. The more usual botanical structure, suitable for the surface of Mars is a greenhouse.

[MephistosChan]

I'm just gonna be like tl;dr and dump this here

http://www.islandone.org/Propulsion/ProjectOrion.html

I don't see how we could power anything bigger than a shuttle, all the way from launchpad to Mars.

If you're going to do something well, you should only do it once.

I really do recommend a copy of Case for Mars, it covers a lot of the details in depth and proposes a system known as 'Mars Direct' funny thing, the new SLS has a lot in common with this, it just isn't as good. The author, Robert Zubrin is an ex Lockheed aerospace engineer.

[GreenWolf13]

Mephistos, you beat me to it! I was goona say somethibg about ion drives but you said it first. There was actuAlly an article in Pop Sci anout ion dries a few months ago. fascinating stuff. I think it was in the secember 2010 issue. It might have been the 2011 issue though. Not sure.

[Hawk767]

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

Rather complex but essentially this is related to the existence of something being near 0 mass which is what much of the mass effect technology is based around, Element Zero. Though an Element Zero doesn't exist as far as we know (something near it) this study is making its way towards such a discovery.

[MephistosChan]

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

Rather complex but essentially this is related to the existence of something being near 0 mass which is what much of the mass effect technology is based around, Element Zero. Though an Element Zero doesn't exist as far as we know (something near it) this study is making its way towards such a discovery.

Sorry, but no. Nothing being done in the research on the Higgs boson is making anything like Mass Effect's inertia suppressing drive. There is not even a hint of a theory of how to suppress inertia. As an example, we understand electro-magnetism very well and are quite capable of making items hover electro-statically but there is just no way of scaling up the technology, physics and the inverse square law are against us. And that is a field we are pretty adept at.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

[Hawk767]

Sorry, but no. Nothing being done in the research on the Higgs boson is making anything like Mass Effect's inertia suppressing drive. There is not even a hint of a theory of how to suppress inertia. As an example, we understand electro-magnetism very well and are quite capable of making items hover electro-statically but there is just no way of scaling up the technology, physics and the inverse square law are against us. And that is a field we are pretty adept at.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Thanks for clearing it up for me then. I had been told it was in ways similar and not having much background in particle physics I wasn't entirely sure.