- Bigger is better - Long relative to thickness - Heavily armored prow - Retractable defense guns Emperor Class Battleships best ships confirmed. Ave Imperator!
I am sure you hear this a lot, but you really make a difference my life. As a person that lives in a very anti science society, your videos are the highlight of my week.
Im surprised how many people there is that never even thought about our civilization as a whole, or their own existence, or the far future, but then i find channels like these, whith an audience like this, who genuinly care for humanity and the future, and that makes me feel less alone in those thoughts. I want to become an engineer or scientist or both some time, and actually make a difference for future humans, and I would love if more people thought like that.
Issac's a miracle considering there's many people who still think earth is flat, that people never went to the Moon, and that vaccines cause disease, among other things.
A ball spaceship (if it really had been a ball) would actually make sense though. Most volume for mass and area, and also very easily made stupidly large because of the strong spherical shape. Sad it doesn't look as good as it's useful :/
"Having a cure for cancer means you don't actually have to care about radiation shielding" is a pretty wild insight. Kinda goes with my other hunch about interstellar travel: lack of FTL is not that big of a deal if we can radically lengthen human lifespans. If a human could expect to live 10,000 years then a century-long trip for them would be like a one-year trip for us, as a proportion of total possible lifespan.
@Arusiek90 What about pirates in decommissioned or abandoned sections of space elevators that prey on cargo lifts? The name of the short story this idea is from escapes me, but I think Isaac recommended it. Power would fail in some sections and its inhabitants turned to piracy to survive, lifts of course having to pass through the "dead" sections to get to higher floors. And when they structurally failed, an industry of ferrymen cropped up hauling goods between working sections of elevator, also targets of piratical activity. Edit: Found it, "The Rope Is The World" by China Melville.
If you are interested there is a pen and paper game called "Eclipse Phase" that uses a lot of the concepts covered by Isaac. It is a hard science rpg based in this solar system. There is no FTL or artificial gravity, but they do have mind uploading where you can choose the "Body" you are in and can change it if needed.
I still haven't played it yet, my own pen and paper group has been on hiatus the last few months and we mostly do fantasy, but I've heard good things about it
@@isaacarthurSFIA If you ever start this, hook me up with a party invite, I'd love to play a rogue AI with a zero-client body represented to the rest of the group via telepresence. :D
Actually, if you want the most realistic space ship game it's Attack Vector: Tactical, made by a former member of the Star Fleet Battles Staff. www.adastragames.com/attack-vector-tactical/
@@alexandernorman5337 augment their sense of smell, so that radio or NFC IFF tags on things smell like what a dog would expect, and / or even add an "artificial nose" to the suit that connects to their own neural interface so they can sniff to their heart's content, could probably extend that to "feeling" threw the suit so they can solve the scratch able itch issue too
Hey Isaac, when I get ready to build my interstellar spacecraft, can I book you in as my primary consultant, engineer, chief designer, chief builder, manager and... well, can you just do the whole thing, please? I love spending time with your videos. They stimulate the walnut I have in my head, which passes for a brain. You're always awesome!
@@conormccue2871 depends on how you see it. It would take almost infinite energy to accellerate that potato to that speed, but theroetically its possible xd
Always those classic, trust your instict designs are best. Simply compare structural strength between 2 designs: Classic cigar rocket ship vs the Star Trek Enterprise with its 2 engines mounted on fragile struts. Looks good but words you never want to hear Captain Kirk/ Picard order "Ramming speed."
The Borg did ok with a big cube!! And my favorite star ship in Star Trek, the original series, was the Fesarius, a mile diameter glowing sphere, commanded by a small child, who owned a fearsome looking puppet! :)
@@ronschlorff7089 Borg's cube shape only works because of their unique propulsion. Most human ships are long and narrow (cigar, triangle wedge, or phallic rocket shape) because most human propulsions are _direct thrust_ and so their shapes are about center of mass. If a direct thrust type skip was shaped like a wide batwing or boomerang (think crescent moon) and their engine was NOT mounted in its center of gravity but instead on just 1 winf tip, we know the ship would just spin in circles as the sngle of the engine thrust is not aligned the ships center of mass. again, a non issue for borg.cubes since they dont use direct thrust but rather Carebear stares, Smurg hugs and my. Little pony rainbow beams. Reading long posts is futile. /jk
wouldnt shit just burn up in atmosphere? unless you created some sort of solidified, freeze-dried shit asteroid youve been saving up for years and launched that at the planet.
Well the basis for their "standard" design is based on the fact that you need to generate a warp field around the ship and so nee nacelles to do this. When you have shielding that works as well as theirs you also are not constrained by some of the more mundane parameter characteristics standard physics makes on everyone else!
You'd be surprised at how well Star Trek ships are thought out in this regard though. Yes, their 'solutions' to most of these problems are truly bizarre tech with little grounding in reality, but examine the lore of these ship designs and there aren't many of these design issues mentioned in the video that aren't accounted for in some way. I'd say the biggest flaws, assuming you accept the basically 'magical' technology involved, are lack of fuel (0.02% of your ship is fuel? Really? Even with near magical tech that's a bit of a stretch isn't it?) and lack of any clear concessions to thermal management. One of the most prominent design features of these ships is for management of interstellar dust related 'drag'. Other major elements include concessions to the (purely fictional - but if it did exist it'd be important) warp physics, and to the fact that at least part of the ship has to survive emergency landings in planetary atmospheres. (saucer section of most ships is designed for at least a single atmospheric re-entry.) Structural problems are accounted for (structural integrity field), acceleration problems (Inertial dampening field), artificial gravity is commonplace. Shields protect against radiation, not just weapons fire. Most of the solutions are flimsy sci-fi handwaves, but someone DID think about many of them... Which is more than can be said for a lot of comparable scifi...
@@KuraIthys what comparable sci-fi? What solutions?! Fiction without science is fantasy and it's not near magic, it's simply magic. You call out handwaved parts and call them solutions in next sentence! What about structural integrity and the fact that ship of such design would bend on itself? What about shielding being made out of sharp angles and being cross crossed? What about fucked up center of mass? What about in-ship transportation system being made impossible by design and yet shown repeatedly?
*Dwarf* planet? This is SFIA. 'Round these parts, we talk about turning gas giants into rocketships and building armadas of literal *star* ships. I'm pretty sure "go big or go home" is one of the #1 Rules of Warfare.
@@TheGreatPurpleFerret Uhm, I think you didn't quite listen to what Kevin Crady said? He was talking about _a fleet of literal star-ships._ You know. _A fleet of suns that are also ships._ Dwarf planets are among the smaller components that go into such a fleet.
Literally the most educational channel regarding astronomy and space. I just came across this channel 2 days ago and I am Absolutely astonished at the degree of scientific/mathematical accuracy that is discussed.
I love this channel. I'm glad this exists. I'm currently working on a hard sci-fi that takes place in about the 2300s ish and I'm aiming to make the science of space travel as real as possible without taking full classes. It's a ton of research but it's fun and your channel helps so much for idea building.
Free advice thatll make it a best seller by monetizing haters. Put Donald Trump in it as the first President to ever be made immortal. Make him leader of an off Mars habitat where he and Elon cooperate to build the first FTL drive and make it the only peaceful area in the system. Actually, kamala would make a great cyborg/AI villain.. or comic relief her tryin to seduce everyone around to regain some sliver of power.
"Attempts to communicate with local life failed when the multi-ton communication array was struck by a particle in transit and broke free. The array proceeded to deliver our message of peace and cooperation physically at 90% of the speed of light."
Mr. Arthur, I would be totally excited if you did an episode talking about classic sci-fi spaceship designs, examining their flaws and window dressing. You are awesome!!!
Awwww YEAH, I've been waiting for a video like this for a long while haha. I'd love to ponder some subsystem configurations and the such. I absolutely love my space bricks. One thing I'll say about freighters though is that the classic big cargo hold ships would likely be used for hauling manufactured goods as well as specific materials which would need to be contained in a controlled environment.
Sheen Blaze Agreed I like Isaac’s suggestion too. It makes me think, "space tugs with uploaded minds that alter their visual interface to look like a rough old space trucker." (I’ve seen things...) lol. I’d call my tug "pig in a blanket" because insulation blankets and I’m an insufferable punny fellow.
Cargo would be handled more by space tugs though. You aren't going to spend the extra mass to encapsulate what you are hauling, you just bundle it together and then push or pull it through space with a tug. More fragile and intricate manufacturing would be more of a local enterprise because 3D printers and other additive technology would be everywhere.
@@alexandernorman5337 This is true, imagine a sort of space train-like system where you have several "containers" of cargo all tugged together in a line, and when approaching their destination they'd retract them into itself to make it one solid shape.
@@sheenblaze3825 Sounds good and logical. Let's hope some dude does not try to "beat the train" to the crossing in space, by going around the arms!! ; )
You are one of the most logical informative technological speakers I have ever heard regarding spacecraft off world and other planet travel. Truly amazing!
Thank you Isaac, another outstanding episode. I saw the flick Silent Running when it first came out and was impressed by the ships they used. There was more science than fiction that went into those designs. On a side note it was Huey, Dewy and Louie that convinced me that I wouldn’t mind working alongside bots.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I'm gonna have to say you aren't missing much. The gameplay is not that noteworthy. Outside of the whole 'fully 3D space' aspect of it. The story, however, is by far one of the greatest out there. I wish more modern games would have that kind of depth and worldbuilding in them. It's a lost art.
We won't get real innovative designs until we can build in orbit, unless they come up with something beyond chemical rockets. Love your vids. Thank you, Isaac Arthur.
This is the design of the spacecraft in my novel: It is a passenger transport craft, with a back-swept delta-wing configuration. One wing contains a passenger seating area, the other, passenger cabins. In the center is the main hallway, which contains the flight deck, situation room, infirmary, matter synthesis room, and the engine room at the back. It has three decks: Deck 1 is the maintenance level, deck 2 is the main deck, and deck 3 is just a holographic planetarium / auditorium, and observation lounge. It has a fully-pressurized cabin with artificial gravity; which makes sense for a passenger spacecraft. Air is filtered and recirculated; CO2 extracted. The propulsion system consists of ion thrusters for maneuvering, fusion thrusters for terrestrial speeds, and a singularity drive for cruising speed.
kerbal space program is honestly the best science fiction game ever created because it incorporates everything in this video and allows people to create spacecraft that are extremely realistic.
I think that in the future, ships will be classified as Halo, Trek, Star Wars, Expanse, 40k, and so forth. Simply describing the shape and design aesthetic of the outer hull.
I was 7 when Star Wars came out in 1977 and have wanted to own the Millenium Falcon ever since. I love the classic flying saucer design and used to draw pictures of space battles with the Falcon as the central focus.The Outrider looks cool too.
Question for the Intelligence of the Artificial: Let's say you live in the future with access to ancestor simulation. You are studying tech history. What time and position would you be put into? Would you be granted an inherent talent for understanding the development arc of technology from the past and into the future? PS: Are you enjoying your simulation so far?
Ever heard of The Culture series? I dont remember what book it is, but one of them has a Mind (basically omnipotent AI) talking about simulating scenarios to predict outcomes or uncover details of the past. Basically, it speaks of an unspoken rule to only go so far with them. They considered it cruel to simulate an entire sentient world/galaxy/universe just to see if your idea works out. That said, it does happen and then they basically agree that they are now responsible to keep the simulation running indefinitely, partitioned off from the rest of their near infinite processing power 🤯
@@crhuskey , While I concur with you that they would never *end* such a simulation, they would be reviewed worse then Gray Area, the problem is ... are the ones running this hypothetical simulation bound by the same code of ethics?
@@lostbutfreesoul It is a sentient AI that would be running these simulations, potentially for incredibly trivial pursuits. That is the point. It interjects the idea that our entire reality could have been simulated just to see what would happen if Donald Trump became president. Perhaps the culture knew of how humanity on earth ended in nuclear war, but a bored Mind just wanted to see it recreated. These AI could literally simulate every atom in the universe with total accuracy and still be using only a fraction of their processing power. But, they are sentient and fully autonomous so it could simulate an entire sentient species from primordial soup through to the discovery of electricity just to see how long it takes them to figure out how to build a toaster oven. Millions of years in mere seconds and with little effort and then just delete it once you see toast. Some Minds would have no problem with that, most have enough respect for life that they consider it uncouth at the least lol. The books are phenomenal and rooted in science. They explore a lot of fascinating ethical and philosophical ideas as well. Start with Consider Phlebas by Ian M. Banks. Amazon Prime is going to be releasing a TV series based on the book.
@@dorssenderhaeg3061 Space warfare is definitely not going to be like what sci-fi fans imagine... Ships are probably going to be pointless in the long run in favor of just slapping engines on asteroids. It will likely be a complex balance of mutually-assured destruction like the cold war, except instead of radiation-filled wastelands it's far more likely to end in molten crusts and asteroid belts. First strike wins, but you better hope there isn't some dead man's switch out there to launch a retaliation kinetic strike because if there is, there will be no way to stop it.
Thanks for all your work, Isaac! I love all of your videos. You apply a realistic point of view towards futurism that is both refreshing and gives a sense of hope for humanity as a whole. Thank you!
Realistic Sci-fi spaceships: Gunstar from The Last Starfighter, Starfury and Thunderbolt from Babylon 5. Most realistic - Anything from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
At 1:21, the solution is simple. Design a reasonable spacecraft with decent margins from off-the-shelf components- then launch the propellant separately. For missions leaving LEO, as much as 80% of the mass in LEO is propellant. If a tanker launch fails, dispatch another bird. While custom hardware can eliminate those half-penny resistors, the fact that it is a custom design injects a hundred *new* bugs that have to be expensively hunted down and fixed. If your electronics stack is large, redundant, and varied- with multiple systems from different vendors capable of doing the same tasks- two boards from two different vendors would have to fail to cause loss of mission. Yes, this makes for a heavier spacecraft. Screw it, make the tanks bigger, launch them empty, and top off the fuel later. Install two or three small main engines, accept the need for multiple burns to depart LEO, and get on with it.
"The Destiny" from Stargate Universe powered by stars is the closest scifi film has gotten. Of course it has a magic drive that we never got to learn about due to cancelation.
That's one area Stargate always lost me, the scale of the power generated by the technology shown simply dwarfs the alternate sources they sometimes throw in. A stargate has enough power to create a wormhole across the galaxy, that's a massive amount of power no matter what technobable you throw at it. But they jump start one with a lightning bolt.... Similarly the Destiny is able to move its substantial mass from one galaxy to another at mind numbing velocities, the idea that they are powering this by scooping a couple tons of star matter every couple million lightyears just doesn't jibe. Not that they are alone in this, I once did some dirty calculation and found that every time Picard ordered the Enterprise to full impulse and full stop they burned the equivalent of several thousand tons of antimatter plus its equivalent in regular matter.
@@DrewLSsix About your calculations on Antimatter Fuel (AMF) consumption used for a complete stop - is that amount due to the ship's momentum? I know the tech excuse for warp is the ship isn't actually moving and the engines are just warping the space in front of the ship to behind it and so warp 9 to stop requires no energy as no momentum to stop. But under Impulse power the ship is moving and so ship mass matters. I always wondered how the ship STOPPED since their impulse engine is direct thrust and in the rear of the ship. There is no impulse engine facing forward but we never see thr ship rotate 180° to cancel their momentum (something we see done properly in The Expanse). PS please limit any technical replies to my education of high school level physics. I never took college physics because it required science and math class prereqs I didn't have like Calculus.
@@lillyanneserrelio2187 Somewhere in Trek it was mentioned that the Impulse drive also has some sort of small warp coil which reduces inertia/ increases effective speed, just not to superluminal speeds. They really had techbabble for everything :D
@@Zonkotron that's incredible. All that techno babble sounds very nearly almost possibly maybe almost barely plausible.😀 Feels like we're just missing that 1 starting tech or exotic lement/ particle to make it all work. Like if we had anti matter. Ah well, of all the techs in Star Trek, the one that would have the most profound effect on our current world is Replicators. That ability to rearrange matter to any other matter. Its the base tech for transporters but even more so, it will solve our worlds resource limitations. Just imagine being able to recycle our billions of tons of garbage dumped into landfills each year. Now it serves as the raw matter that Replicators use to reshape into limitless food, rare (and expensive) elements which will drastically lower costs of R&D, Space travel (fuel is now free and limitless, as are the costly building materisls like titanium gold for astronaut's visors, etc. PLUS, like Diana Troy, I want my 4 chocolate mouse desserts! 😃😆
Time dilation always blows my mind, especially when I do the thought experiment of if I were a ray of light from the big bang I would see no difference in time from then to now.
Isaac, your calm and soothing voice often carries my softly to the dream lands. No critique to the excellent content, just a comment on the sound of your calming voice! Many thanks!
For protecting from radiation shielding, I'm down for using classic magnetic fields. It's better to be safe than sorry. Screw purely frontal shields! I want all-round protection! Hmmm...maybe that could be a big debate for any interplanetary/interstellar civilization--less mass and power generation vs. better protection?
How to colonize other star systems: *Upload your mind along with 100K others onto a computer. *send computer to destination (may take centuries or millenia) *once there clone bodies for every inhabitant originals keep living their life on Earth
"Pushing Ice" is a really great book but really anything Alastair Reynolds writes is going to be great. And I SpaceDock is good but I would love to see YOU do a really deep-deep and technical dive into SciFi Space Ship designs contrasting them with real designs. My favorite ship remains ACC's XD1 Discovery but it is now followed by the Rocinante. Just look at how Elon's Starship is a reflection of the old Buck Rogers Flash Gordon Ships from the 1930's. This Island Earth, the Day the Earth Stood Still and Fantastic Planet: there is so much history here. Please do it! It would be awesome!
@@m5w5 That's a great point. The Epstein Drive produces an unimaginable amount of power and power is heat. We overlook where all the power to have 1-plus G of constant acceleration comes from too - but it is science 'fiction'. I'm just glad we have got such good science fiction.
For some future civilization ship design could be the same as cars now. If energy isn't a problem then design can move more toward form after function is met.
If energy is not a problem, then constant acceleration would be possible, and if they built ships looking like cars, then the front of the ship would be the roof, and the wheels would be the rear. Looking through the windshield, you would be looking out the side of the ship. You could make the front of the car the front of the ship as well, but at constant acceleration at say 1G, you would feel like lying on your back with your feet in the air, falling through the rear window of the car if you were to roll of the seat.
I imagine that in terms of trade, people probably won’t be shipping much raw material between stars (just within a system), and we might be more likely to just ship communication ships carrying information that travel interstellar distances to get within range of the target, then turn back to return responses and whatnot. And maybe also finished goods depending on how far 3D printing progresses by the time we have interstellar travel.
The only real reason for interstellar trade would be if either you have a very usefull material that isn't present in every system or in case a system has advanced so much that they basically used most of their resources already (practically unimaginable seeing the scale, but you never know).
I suspect that interstellar travel at least to the nearest stars will probably use fission reactors as a power source and ion drives for propulsion, it gives you steady controllable thrust with a relatively lightweight source of energy.
Spent uranium isn't (that) radioactive but might do the trick for shielding but is very dense & heavy. Probably too dense to launch much of it. Ice, hydrogen or some metamaterial is probably what will be used for shielding until an electromagnetic means of deflecting radiation can be developed.
St3llarMemer you should’ve gone for mithridatisation, since you don’t take things that could hurt you with a vaccine, neither « live » virus or bacteria, nor functioning toxins.
25:45 Unless the blue shifted light and particles hitting one side get in some degree countered by quantum fluctuations on the other comparatively less bussy side. Also, depending on the shape of the ship's nose and how the structure is attached anything hitting the edges could be deflected in different vectors to avoid complete deceleration.
I think inertial dampeners would solve a lot of your concerns re: rapid acceleration/de-acceleration. You know ... like they have in ST or SG Atlantis. ;)
I mean. I really like this guys voice, it forces me to pay attention and makes it hard to zone out while watching and I often retain this info better than other channels due to then aberrant voice memory.
NASA: We need a long, thin, rounded craft designed to protect from pressure differentials and a harsh external environment. USN Submarine fleet: Hold my beer.
And nuclear submarines got a long life powerplant and atmosphere processing to boot! Just gotta swap out that screw propulsion for something more practical...
I may come over as a bit of a pedant here, but as we are talking spaceships I will risk the irony ;0) First I think most of the graphics are cool (which is, I suspect, their main point) .......... but Many of the ships incorporate spinning sections to give psudo-gravity, however the designer has not taken in to account centripetal forces! The ones that have a stationary core with a rotating disc or cylinder round it would have a problem spinning the outer without also spinning the core in the opposite direction. Unless the spin is generated by gyroscopic effect you would presumably have a force spinning both parts in opposite directions. If your spin Is generated by using a large mass as a gyroscope and effecting motion relative to that ...... you need eather a Large mass or a great diameter (or both) to react against! For those with multiple spinning rings you could use reaction of one ring against the next, but even so having a "stationary" core would not be easy! My personal favourite was the ship with multiple groups of 4 wheels all spinning on their own and their spindles centre! Anyone who has been on the fairground rides knows how that one feels! It would Not be good for extended (or even short) periods! There is the added problem of course correction with them all. They would All act as gyroscopes and resist any course changes to their axis'. The ships would also need constant course correction to counter precession effects ..... unless you keep the spins constant And do not fly in a gravity well! Compared to actually building any of them I suspect curing these problems would be relatively minor ;0)
A possible solution would be 3 spinning rings: two spinning in one direction and the middle one in the opposite direction, with said ring being the same mass as the two on the extremes combined, so they all end up having equal but opposite momentum on the plain of the middle ring, cancelling out, it would make it slightly harder to change course but it's only slightly
@@agustinvenegas5238 A bit more complex than that ;0) Your middle section would need to have twice the mass moment as the ends to "balance" ....... and then it would depend on the point you want the ship to pivot its axis on when turning! One way may be to use a gyroscope (or even one of your spinning rings ) to generate a point you can apply a turning force to.
Plenty late compared to when this was put out, but i just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work and amazing ideas. Im putting together a sci fi ttrpg for some friends. We're all big physics nerds in our own ways, and i wanted to make the space vessels of the world have a pleasant touch of realism. This video has given me lots of ideas for my sketch work and planning.
"Look... you wanna know why I'm in that chair... and you're not? For the exact same reason why North is North, why the handsome guy always gets the girl, and why every spaceship in the universe is shaped like a cock. It's destiny, Rhys." -Vasquez
Another thing that could be important: in case we ever develop FTL technology, having the entire fleet of spacecraft physically lock together for warp might have to be necessary in order for time dilation to affect all of a fleet uniformly. That way if a small fighter slowed down suddenly due to an impact it would not suddenly change time flow and experience a different reality than the one the other spacecraft would.
i kept hearing Valium not volume, that is a lot of pills lol :) 4:30. love your content as usual :) i would love a video on making energy with the earths magnetosphere.
If i was a teacher, middle or high, i'd give this as a weekend homework 'read', then have half hour Q&As for the next few classes. Few years later, would check back with the kids and count how many went full force into engineering, research, any sort of applied science etc.
Yeah, made a surprising amount of sense for that kind of a movie. Elysium still stands as my favorite for realistic engineering and design, though Ghost in the Shell and Alita Battle Angel came close. Realistic in Alita's case being exploring the options for the problems facing individuals given the ability to replace ones body with a machine.
With as many hours of sci-fi I've written, read and watched, and all the space games I've played, it NEVER occurred to me to use a rock as the craft. Attach engines, start the rock moving, dig into it as you travel to expand and make the braking engines. Free shielding by burrowing inside, free materials to expand with, free water and O2 from the ice as well as all the other gasses and minerals you find. If there's gold or platinum on the rock the rare metals alone might pay for the whole trip. My world is officially rocked...
@Pixel Storm Getting access to huge amounts of new materials *will* devalue it somewhat, but so long as there is still a use for it it will have some value. In addition, when the material cost drops that allows more stuff to be made from it, which could drive demand back up. Of course the first few times it happens its a big deal, but by the time we are routinely hauling in stuff like that - and using it, in projects of ever growing scale - it should become just another part of the normal economy.
And if your civilization is building megastructures like Dyson Spheres? A few megatons of material being brought in per day suddenly doesn't sound so far fetched.
@Pixel Storm There is nothing insurmountable about building a few sattilites around a sun, even if they are huge in scale. Do that a few billion times and you're well on your way to having a Dyson Sphere. It gets easier with good automation, and automation gets easier as you have access to more power and resources from the Dyson Sphere. As for messing with orbital paths, that's something I have wondered about. But when I think about it, I think if you pulled the majority of your materials from the asteroid belt early on, that wouldn't have too much immediate effect on the planets. Granted, eventually you'll run out of large asteroids worth grabbing and need to start disassambling a small planet like Mercury... Or maybe not. You could use starlifting to get the materials you need directly from the sun. Since all the mass would still be at the center of the solar system, it wouldn't really effect orbital paths of planets very much. But then I guess that does kind of defeat my original point of bringing in megatons of material for constructing a Dyson Sphere. Maybe not if you have a mass driver on Mercury slinging rocks I to a pre-established orbital paths around the sun for constructing components of the Dyson Sphere.
I wish you would have took the time to look at the classic sci-fi space ships. We love listening the way you disseminate how such things are grounded in scientific reality and how much of it is speculative imagination of possible designs as well as other intricate details! I hope one day you will make one such episode, the way you explain things and your soothing voice is amazing in captivating our interest and curiosity!
The answer is deregulation. If companies like SpaceX were allowed to do their thing unimpeded, the problem would go away. SpaceX is removing the SLS problem, of course, but it's taking longer than it had to.
sci-fi writers: ww2 planes
Isaac Arthur: L O N G B O Y
sci-fi writers' spaceships are designed with taking inspiration from ww2 planes or what? Did I get it right?
Dr.Who had an episode with literal Spitfires in space
But the German Bombers can cöimb higher :D
@@El_Presidente_5337 laughs in TU-4
kormannn1 the abortion known as Star Wars the last Jedi is guilty of this
- Bigger is better
- Long relative to thickness
- Heavily armored prow
- Retractable defense guns
Emperor Class Battleships best ships confirmed. Ave Imperator!
death to the false emperor!
All hail the golden throne
FOR THE EMPOROR!!!!!!
WAAA.. Crap, wrong group chat.
Initiate Ramming Manouvre, Full Speed ahead!
I am sure you hear this a lot, but you really make a difference my life. As a person that lives in a very anti science society, your videos are the highlight of my week.
Thank you :)
I felt that way when I first started listening.
Im surprised how many people there is that never even thought about our civilization as a whole, or their own existence, or the far future, but then i find channels like these, whith an audience like this, who genuinly care for humanity and the future, and that makes me feel less alone in those thoughts. I want to become an engineer or scientist or both some time, and actually make a difference for future humans, and I would love if more people thought like that.
Issac's a miracle considering there's many people who still think earth is flat, that people never went to the Moon, and that vaccines cause disease, among other things.
I know that evolution is under assault from both sides of political spectrum, but thought that space design is (ideologically) safe subject.
I watched looney tunes and they demonstrated how stepping on a pin can launch you into space, sounds pretty cheap to me.
ROFL!
To increase launch velocity I suggest stepping on a Lego piece.
@@ShadowStrike29 That's a war crime though.
@@ShadowStrike29 ROFL - brilliant!
Falling on a cactus can too. Actually, I think Wile E. Coyote did it in pretty much every way imaginable.
Happy Arthursday everyone.
@@syaondri 😉
what the
Who’s mio
syaondri Oh I thought it was some edgy troll who spewed vitriol and then deleted the comment
syaondri it’s happened a lot
Long trailing radiator fins
Bulky front shielding
Long thin body
All I'm hearing is GIANT INTERGALACTIC SPACE JELLYFISH!!!
A Kadeshi Mothership!!! \m/
werewolf435 Mon Calamari of course!
Ooooooouhhhh...
Avatar titan from eve online
For last second before I open your comment and read hidden text I supposing you mean GIANT INTERGALACTIC SPACE PENIS
Out of all the ship designs I've ever seen, I'd have to say the most versatile is Spaceball One.
A ball spaceship (if it really had been a ball) would actually make sense though. Most volume for mass and area, and also very easily made stupidly large because of the strong spherical shape. Sad it doesn't look as good as it's useful :/
10,000 years of fresh air!
But we'll never have the tech to reach super-ludicrous velocities.
@@volcryndarkstar who knows what Ludicrus speeds will be possible, it could be some strange exploit of physics that just requires a weaker CBMR
*makes the most unrealistic ship possible as a joke*
some internet nerd years later: "I hate to break you the news"
"Having a cure for cancer means you don't actually have to care about radiation shielding" is a pretty wild insight. Kinda goes with my other hunch about interstellar travel: lack of FTL is not that big of a deal if we can radically lengthen human lifespans. If a human could expect to live 10,000 years then a century-long trip for them would be like a one-year trip for us, as a proportion of total possible lifespan.
"anti collision laser" .... you mean doom ray
+ShadowcatAlfa - Isaac Arthur Spaceship Axiom No. 3: No vessel capable of interstellar travel or relativistic speeds is “unarmed.”
I need to know when Isaac Arthour does an episode on space pirates
@@tariqahmad1371 December 19th
@@isaacarthurSFIA Really? So nice to hear that!
@Arusiek90 What about pirates in decommissioned or abandoned sections of space elevators that prey on cargo lifts? The name of the short story this idea is from escapes me, but I think Isaac recommended it.
Power would fail in some sections and its inhabitants turned to piracy to survive, lifts of course having to pass through the "dead" sections to get to higher floors. And when they structurally failed, an industry of ferrymen cropped up hauling goods between working sections of elevator, also targets of piratical activity.
Edit: Found it, "The Rope Is The World" by China Melville.
If you are interested there is a pen and paper game called "Eclipse Phase" that uses a lot of the concepts covered by Isaac. It is a hard science rpg based in this solar system. There is no FTL or artificial gravity, but they do have mind uploading where you can choose the "Body" you are in and can change it if needed.
I still haven't played it yet, my own pen and paper group has been on hiatus the last few months and we mostly do fantasy, but I've heard good things about it
@@isaacarthurSFIA If you ever start this, hook me up with a party invite, I'd love to play a rogue AI with a zero-client body represented to the rest of the group via telepresence. :D
Actually, if you want the most realistic space ship game it's Attack Vector: Tactical, made by a former member of the Star Fleet Battles Staff.
www.adastragames.com/attack-vector-tactical/
wow sounds lovely. Does this group meet through skype or in person somewhere?
@@lillyanneserrelio2187 The SFB Staff made the definitive space combat game in the 1980's. They don't really exist anymore.
dogs in space suits.
when scifi goes from "i have no voice yet i must scream" to "i have an itch yet can not lick".
Auto-vibrations inside suits makes sure the body is always free of the scourge.
Or "there is a butt but I cannot sniff".
@@alexandernorman5337 augment their sense of smell, so that radio or NFC IFF tags on things smell like what a dog would expect, and / or even add an "artificial nose" to the suit that connects to their own neural interface so they can sniff to their heart's content, could probably extend that to "feeling" threw the suit so they can solve the scratch able itch issue too
What about going to the bathroom
@@generalshark6084 Catheter training?
"I'll end here for the sake of brevity"
I don't think anyone here watches you for the sake of brevity 😂
Facts lol
Brevity he says. He can't even pronounce the letter R....
Hey Isaac, when I get ready to build my interstellar spacecraft, can I book you in as my primary consultant, engineer, chief designer, chief builder, manager and... well, can you just do the whole thing, please? I love spending time with your videos. They stimulate the walnut I have in my head, which passes for a brain. You're always awesome!
theweatherbuff
As long as you're willing to pay and not take too long, I feel like he'd oblige!
Hmm.. Hitting any object at relavistic velocities make it into a bomb.. So a "Potato" at such speeds would become "La Bomb-de terre".. Cool!
A potato hitting the earth at a speed close to light speed would probably delete the earth from existence so yes, it would lol
@@assarstromblad3280 Except that's literally impossible, so no worries.
@@conormccue2871 depends on how you see it. It would take almost infinite energy to accellerate that potato to that speed, but theroetically its possible xd
Le Pomme de holy shit
...I can hear the sad trombone from this pun.
Happy Arthursday everyone!
I'd dispute the sort of ship you describe looking "boring"
And awww yeah, SpaceDock shoutout!
Does this mean that flying Saucers and Cigars are actually an optimal shape for space travel?
Yes i think so
Redenzous with Rama
Always those classic, trust your instict designs are best. Simply compare structural strength between 2 designs: Classic cigar rocket ship vs the Star Trek Enterprise with its 2 engines mounted on fragile struts. Looks good but words you never want to hear Captain Kirk/ Picard order "Ramming speed."
The Borg did ok with a big cube!! And my favorite star ship in Star Trek, the original series, was the Fesarius, a mile diameter glowing sphere, commanded by a small child, who owned a fearsome looking puppet! :)
@@ronschlorff7089 Borg's cube shape only works because of their unique propulsion. Most human ships are long and narrow (cigar, triangle wedge, or phallic rocket shape) because most human propulsions are _direct thrust_ and so their shapes are about center of mass. If a direct thrust type skip was shaped like a wide batwing or boomerang (think crescent moon) and their engine was NOT mounted in its center of gravity but instead on just 1 winf tip, we know the ship would just spin in circles as the sngle of the engine thrust is not aligned the ships center of mass. again, a non issue for borg.cubes since they dont use direct thrust but rather Carebear stares, Smurg hugs and my. Little pony rainbow beams.
Reading long posts is futile. /jk
SFIA: The only place in the known universe where, "but we'll come back to that later" is a good thing to hear! Thank you again!
11:11
wouldnt shit just burn up in atmosphere? unless you created some sort of solidified, freeze-dried shit asteroid youve been saving up for years and launched that at the planet.
@@pleaseenteranamelol711 if it's travelling at relativistic speeds itll just go right through the atmosphere and still destroy everything
@@pleaseenteranamelol711, And most would burn up. But you never know who might be looking up at the sky with mouth open.. Yikes..lol
@@marlonlacert8133 sounds terrifying 🤣
@@marlonlacert8133 they would die
The level of knowledge you possess on these topics is insane, thank you for sharing it.
Ah yes, Star Fleet prepare to take notes
as for Star Fleet, lets start with their cybersecurity...
@@empireempire3545 what is that strange alien word?
Well the basis for their "standard" design is based on the fact that you need to generate a warp field around the ship and so nee nacelles to do this. When you have shielding that works as well as theirs you also are not constrained by some of the more mundane parameter characteristics standard physics makes on everyone else!
You'd be surprised at how well Star Trek ships are thought out in this regard though.
Yes, their 'solutions' to most of these problems are truly bizarre tech with little grounding in reality, but examine the lore of these ship designs and there aren't many of these design issues mentioned in the video that aren't accounted for in some way.
I'd say the biggest flaws, assuming you accept the basically 'magical' technology involved, are lack of fuel (0.02% of your ship is fuel? Really? Even with near magical tech that's a bit of a stretch isn't it?)
and lack of any clear concessions to thermal management.
One of the most prominent design features of these ships is for management of interstellar dust related 'drag'.
Other major elements include concessions to the (purely fictional - but if it did exist it'd be important) warp physics, and to the fact that at least part of the ship has to survive emergency landings in planetary atmospheres. (saucer section of most ships is designed for at least a single atmospheric re-entry.)
Structural problems are accounted for (structural integrity field), acceleration problems (Inertial dampening field), artificial gravity is commonplace.
Shields protect against radiation, not just weapons fire.
Most of the solutions are flimsy sci-fi handwaves, but someone DID think about many of them...
Which is more than can be said for a lot of comparable scifi...
@@KuraIthys what comparable sci-fi? What solutions?! Fiction without science is fantasy and it's not near magic, it's simply magic. You call out handwaved parts and call them solutions in next sentence! What about structural integrity and the fact that ship of such design would bend on itself? What about shielding being made out of sharp angles and being cross crossed? What about fucked up center of mass? What about in-ship transportation system being made impossible by design and yet shown repeatedly?
This is the episode I have been waiting for since I first started watching this series.
I thought the key was building the largest most absurd dwarf planet sized world ship?
*Dwarf* planet? This is SFIA. 'Round these parts, we talk about turning gas giants into rocketships and building armadas of literal *star* ships. I'm pretty sure "go big or go home" is one of the #1 Rules of Warfare.
@@kevincrady2831 did I say dwarf planet sized? I clearly meant to say dwarfs planets sized ;)
NedryOS I’m more for a fleet of worlds :)
Why stop there when you can bump it up to black hole starships. Imagine building your starship centered around TON 618.
@@TheGreatPurpleFerret
Uhm, I think you didn't quite listen to what Kevin Crady said? He was talking about _a fleet of literal star-ships._ You know. _A fleet of suns that are also ships._ Dwarf planets are among the smaller components that go into such a fleet.
Literally the most educational channel regarding astronomy and space. I just came across this channel 2 days ago and I am Absolutely astonished at the degree of scientific/mathematical accuracy that is discussed.
I love this channel. I'm glad this exists. I'm currently working on a hard sci-fi that takes place in about the 2300s ish and I'm aiming to make the science of space travel as real as possible without taking full classes. It's a ton of research but it's fun and your channel helps so much for idea building.
Furries cannot make good sci fi
@@Melinmingle cry more
Free advice thatll make it a best seller by monetizing haters. Put Donald Trump in it as the first President to ever be made immortal. Make him leader of an off Mars habitat where he and Elon cooperate to build the first FTL drive and make it the only peaceful area in the system. Actually, kamala would make a great cyborg/AI villain.. or comic relief her tryin to seduce everyone around to regain some sliver of power.
I tried to make a argument but this man has done his homework. Very smart. 👍
Random wrench destroys civilization.
Man, that's why aliens don't talk to us! They're too ashamed of killing the dinosaurs during their first visit.
"Attempts to communicate with local life failed when the multi-ton communication array was struck by a particle in transit and broke free. The array proceeded to deliver our message of peace and cooperation physically at 90% of the speed of light."
@@KertaDrake That made me laugh. :D
@@KertaDrake damn. imagine the sheer kinetic energy
Not watched this yet, but you've knocked it out of the park with your recent subjects. Great job Isaac.
Mr. Arthur, I would be totally excited if you did an episode talking about classic sci-fi spaceship designs, examining their flaws and window dressing. You are awesome!!!
yes here we go. thank you Arthur
Also a big thank you for mentioning Spacedock as it is one of my fav Scifi Channels.
The universe and chaos theory designed our current space ship!
Awwww YEAH, I've been waiting for a video like this for a long while haha. I'd love to ponder some subsystem configurations and the such. I absolutely love my space bricks.
One thing I'll say about freighters though is that the classic big cargo hold ships would likely be used for hauling manufactured goods as well as specific materials which would need to be contained in a controlled environment.
Sheen Blaze Agreed I like Isaac’s suggestion too. It makes me think, "space tugs with uploaded minds that alter their visual interface to look like a rough old space trucker." (I’ve seen things...) lol. I’d call my tug "pig in a blanket" because insulation blankets and I’m an insufferable punny fellow.
@@thumb-ugly7518 that's absolutely brilliant
Cargo would be handled more by space tugs though. You aren't going to spend the extra mass to encapsulate what you are hauling, you just bundle it together and then push or pull it through space with a tug. More fragile and intricate manufacturing would be more of a local enterprise because 3D printers and other additive technology would be everywhere.
@@alexandernorman5337 This is true, imagine a sort of space train-like system where you have several "containers" of cargo all tugged together in a line, and when approaching their destination they'd retract them into itself to make it one solid shape.
@@sheenblaze3825 Sounds good and logical. Let's hope some dude does not try to "beat the train" to the crossing in space, by going around the arms!! ; )
You are one of the most logical informative technological speakers I have ever heard regarding spacecraft off world and other planet travel. Truly amazing!
05:57 PST... wth am I awake for already? Isaac Arthur of course! 😃😂
I love your series, it's always great when a notification comes up about your new videos !!!!
Thank you Isaac, another outstanding episode. I saw the flick Silent Running when it first came out and was impressed by the ships they used. There was more science than fiction that went into those designs. On a side note it was Huey, Dewy and Louie that convinced me that I wouldn’t mind working alongside bots.
"you don't want to send a comet in to the inner system"
*Laughs in Marco*
Am I the only one who would love to hear Isaac Arthur narrating Homeworld 3?
I still haven't played HW2 yet, and truth be told didn't play the original much either, was more of Master of Orion junkie
It could be a prequel where he explains that the original ships that left Sol were O'Niell cylinders built in asteroids.
Isaac Arthur you could use this to make a mod for your voice ua-cam.com/video/0sR1rU3gLzQ/v-deo.html
@@isaacarthurSFIA I'm gonna have to say you aren't missing much. The gameplay is not that noteworthy. Outside of the whole 'fully 3D space' aspect of it. The story, however, is by far one of the greatest out there. I wish more modern games would have that kind of depth and worldbuilding in them. It's a lost art.
Cast Isaac as an AI who develops a funky speech impediment to purposefully screw with the organics
We won't get real innovative designs until we can build in orbit, unless they come up with something beyond chemical rockets.
Love your vids. Thank you, Isaac Arthur.
This is the design of the spacecraft in my novel:
It is a passenger transport craft, with a back-swept delta-wing configuration. One wing contains a passenger seating area, the other, passenger cabins.
In the center is the main hallway, which contains the flight deck, situation room, infirmary, matter synthesis room, and the engine room at the back.
It has three decks: Deck 1 is the maintenance level, deck 2 is the main deck, and deck 3 is just a holographic planetarium / auditorium, and observation lounge.
It has a fully-pressurized cabin with artificial gravity; which makes sense for a passenger spacecraft. Air is filtered and recirculated; CO2 extracted.
The propulsion system consists of ion thrusters for maneuvering, fusion thrusters for terrestrial speeds, and a singularity drive for cruising speed.
kerbal space program is honestly the best science fiction game ever created because it incorporates everything in this video and allows people to create spacecraft that are extremely realistic.
I think that in the future, ships will be classified as Halo, Trek, Star Wars, Expanse, 40k, and so forth. Simply describing the shape and design aesthetic of the outer hull.
we will probably try to recreate these ships because we love them so much. i wouldnt be suprised if an attempt was made at making the enterprise
Laughs in Macross city ships.
I was 7 when Star Wars came out in 1977 and have wanted to own the Millenium Falcon ever since. I love the classic flying saucer design and used to draw pictures of space battles with the Falcon as the central focus.The Outrider looks cool too.
Question for the Intelligence of the Artificial:
Let's say you live in the future with access to ancestor simulation.
You are studying tech history.
What time and position would you be put into?
Would you be granted an inherent talent for understanding the development arc of technology from the past and into the future?
PS:
Are you enjoying your simulation so far?
Well from what i saw till now . It isn't good.
Ever heard of The Culture series? I dont remember what book it is, but one of them has a Mind (basically omnipotent AI) talking about simulating scenarios to predict outcomes or uncover details of the past.
Basically, it speaks of an unspoken rule to only go so far with them. They considered it cruel to simulate an entire sentient world/galaxy/universe just to see if your idea works out. That said, it does happen and then they basically agree that they are now responsible to keep the simulation running indefinitely, partitioned off from the rest of their near infinite processing power 🤯
none and all.
I would likely have the ability to review the entire simulation without being part of.
@@crhuskey ,
While I concur with you that they would never *end* such a simulation, they would be reviewed worse then Gray Area, the problem is ... are the ones running this hypothetical simulation bound by the same code of ethics?
@@lostbutfreesoul It is a sentient AI that would be running these simulations, potentially for incredibly trivial pursuits. That is the point. It interjects the idea that our entire reality could have been simulated just to see what would happen if Donald Trump became president. Perhaps the culture knew of how humanity on earth ended in nuclear war, but a bored Mind just wanted to see it recreated. These AI could literally simulate every atom in the universe with total accuracy and still be using only a fraction of their processing power. But, they are sentient and fully autonomous so it could simulate an entire sentient species from primordial soup through to the discovery of electricity just to see how long it takes them to figure out how to build a toaster oven. Millions of years in mere seconds and with little effort and then just delete it once you see toast. Some Minds would have no problem with that, most have enough respect for life that they consider it uncouth at the least lol.
The books are phenomenal and rooted in science. They explore a lot of fascinating ethical and philosophical ideas as well. Start with Consider Phlebas by Ian M. Banks. Amazon Prime is going to be releasing a TV series based on the book.
One energy-based point defense? No arc emitters, missiles, or kinetic weaponry?
Good luck with the war in heaven/extradimensional invaders, my dude
@@dorssenderhaeg3061 Space warfare is definitely not going to be like what sci-fi fans imagine... Ships are probably going to be pointless in the long run in favor of just slapping engines on asteroids. It will likely be a complex balance of mutually-assured destruction like the cold war, except instead of radiation-filled wastelands it's far more likely to end in molten crusts and asteroid belts. First strike wins, but you better hope there isn't some dead man's switch out there to launch a retaliation kinetic strike because if there is, there will be no way to stop it.
@@KertaDrake he was making a joking reference to the Stellaris video game
Ah time for an uplifting topic!
Thanks for all your work, Isaac! I love all of your videos. You apply a realistic point of view towards futurism that is both refreshing and gives a sense of hope for humanity as a whole.
Thank you!
Thanks Justin!
Realistic Sci-fi spaceships: Gunstar from The Last Starfighter, Starfury and Thunderbolt from Babylon 5.
Most realistic - Anything from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
At 1:21, the solution is simple. Design a reasonable spacecraft with decent margins from off-the-shelf components- then launch the propellant separately. For missions leaving LEO, as much as 80% of the mass in LEO is propellant. If a tanker launch fails, dispatch another bird.
While custom hardware can eliminate those half-penny resistors, the fact that it is a custom design injects a hundred *new* bugs that have to be expensively hunted down and fixed. If your electronics stack is large, redundant, and varied- with multiple systems from different vendors capable of doing the same tasks- two boards from two different vendors would have to fail to cause loss of mission.
Yes, this makes for a heavier spacecraft. Screw it, make the tanks bigger, launch them empty, and top off the fuel later. Install two or three small main engines, accept the need for multiple burns to depart LEO, and get on with it.
"The Destiny" from Stargate Universe powered by stars is the closest scifi film has gotten. Of course it has a magic drive that we never got to learn about due to cancelation.
That's one area Stargate always lost me, the scale of the power generated by the technology shown simply dwarfs the alternate sources they sometimes throw in. A stargate has enough power to create a wormhole across the galaxy, that's a massive amount of power no matter what technobable you throw at it. But they jump start one with a lightning bolt....
Similarly the Destiny is able to move its substantial mass from one galaxy to another at mind numbing velocities, the idea that they are powering this by scooping a couple tons of star matter every couple million lightyears just doesn't jibe.
Not that they are alone in this, I once did some dirty calculation and found that every time Picard ordered the Enterprise to full impulse and full stop they burned the equivalent of several thousand tons of antimatter plus its equivalent in regular matter.
@@DrewLSsix Thanks for the reply
@@DrewLSsix About your calculations on Antimatter Fuel (AMF) consumption used for a complete stop - is that amount due to the ship's momentum?
I know the tech excuse for warp is the ship isn't actually moving and the engines are just warping the space in front of the ship to behind it and so warp 9 to stop requires no energy as no momentum to stop.
But under Impulse power the ship is moving and so ship mass matters. I always wondered how the ship STOPPED since their impulse engine is direct thrust and in the rear of the ship. There is no impulse engine facing forward but we never see thr ship rotate 180° to cancel their momentum (something we see done properly in The Expanse).
PS please limit any technical replies to my education of high school level physics. I never took college physics because it required science and math class prereqs I didn't have like Calculus.
@@lillyanneserrelio2187 Somewhere in Trek it was mentioned that the Impulse drive also has some sort of small warp coil which reduces inertia/ increases effective speed, just not to superluminal speeds. They really had techbabble for everything :D
@@Zonkotron that's incredible. All that techno babble sounds very nearly almost possibly maybe almost barely plausible.😀 Feels like we're just missing that 1 starting tech or exotic lement/ particle to make it all work. Like if we had anti matter.
Ah well, of all the techs in Star Trek, the one that would have the most profound effect on our current world is Replicators. That ability to rearrange matter to any other matter. Its the base tech for transporters but even more so, it will solve our worlds resource limitations. Just imagine being able to recycle our billions of tons of garbage dumped into landfills each year. Now it serves as the raw matter that Replicators use to reshape into limitless food, rare (and expensive) elements which will drastically lower costs of R&D, Space travel (fuel is now free and limitless, as are the costly building materisls like titanium gold for astronaut's visors, etc.
PLUS, like Diana Troy, I want my 4 chocolate mouse desserts! 😃😆
Issac knows how to speak to mass with a genuine person with a soothing narrative nice.
Time dilation always blows my mind, especially when I do the thought experiment of if I were a ray of light from the big bang I would see no difference in time from then to now.
Isaac, your calm and soothing voice often carries my softly to the dream lands. No critique to the excellent content, just a comment on the sound of your calming voice! Many thanks!
Playing Kerbal space program while watching this awesome episode
the opening sentence summarized pretty much all of my problems with scifi spaceships. bravo.
Another Thursday another venture into interesting topics!
Great video! Arthur you really are the highlight of my week thanks so much.
For protecting from radiation shielding, I'm down for using classic magnetic fields. It's better to be safe than sorry. Screw purely frontal shields! I want all-round protection!
Hmmm...maybe that could be a big debate for any interplanetary/interstellar civilization--less mass and power generation vs. better protection?
Time to sit back and relax 🙂 love these videos and narrations! Keep em coming!
Lovely episode.Would love to know more about designs of spaceships that operate within the solar system. Hopefully in a future episode!
How to colonize other star systems:
*Upload your mind along with 100K others onto a computer.
*send computer to destination (may take centuries or millenia)
*once there clone bodies for every inhabitant
originals keep living their life on Earth
We're not there yet.
-isaac: right now every spacecraft is designed to be as light as possible, because every kilogram matters
-NASA: SENDS COOKIE OVEN TO SPACE
To be fair, is is a light weight one cookie at a time oven...
Great work. It's really nice to listen to your voice and think about future possibilities
"Pushing Ice" is a really great book but really anything Alastair Reynolds writes is going to be great. And I SpaceDock is good but I would love to see YOU do a really deep-deep and technical dive into SciFi Space Ship designs contrasting them with real designs. My favorite ship remains ACC's XD1 Discovery but it is now followed by the Rocinante. Just look at how Elon's Starship is a reflection of the old Buck Rogers Flash Gordon Ships from the 1930's. This Island Earth, the Day the Earth Stood Still and Fantastic Planet: there is so much history here. Please do it! It would be awesome!
Yeah, the Roci is awesome. The only thing that I don't like about it is that it doesn't have any radiators.
@@m5w5 That's a great point. The Epstein Drive produces an unimaginable amount of power and power is heat. We overlook where all the power to have 1-plus G of constant acceleration comes from too - but it is science 'fiction'. I'm just glad we have got such good science fiction.
Already looking forward to the sequel!
Hopefully, this branches into a playlist. . .
For some future civilization ship design could be the same as cars now. If energy isn't a problem then design can move more toward
form after function is met.
If energy is not a problem, then constant acceleration would be possible, and if they built ships looking like cars, then the front of the ship would be the roof, and the wheels would be the rear. Looking through the windshield, you would be looking out the side of the ship. You could make the front of the car the front of the ship as well, but at constant acceleration at say 1G, you would feel like lying on your back with your feet in the air, falling through the rear window of the car if you were to roll of the seat.
I imagine that in terms of trade, people probably won’t be shipping much raw material between stars (just within a system), and we might be more likely to just ship communication ships carrying information that travel interstellar distances to get within range of the target, then turn back to return responses and whatnot.
And maybe also finished goods depending on how far 3D printing progresses by the time we have interstellar travel.
The only real reason for interstellar trade would be if either you have a very usefull material that isn't present in every system or in case a system has advanced so much that they basically used most of their resources already (practically unimaginable seeing the scale, but you never know).
Remember The Cant. 👊
I suspect that interstellar travel at least to the nearest stars will probably use fission reactors as a power source and ion drives for propulsion, it gives you steady controllable thrust with a relatively lightweight source of energy.
Isaac: "Turn on captions if you have trouble understanding me"
Me: listens at 2x speed while making a C++ app.
Kerbaman Weird flex but ok.
Kerbaman. It would be easier to understand him if his tongue wasn’t jammed into his teeth. Push your tongue forward and you too will sound like him. 😛
@@SoirEkim I know, I just have no trouble in understanding Isaac.
Kerbaman, it’s cool. 🤗
Ah thanks, at 1.75x it almost sounds normal. It's not hard to understand, just distracting that water = "waotoer"
Jesus, two of my favo.rite sci-fi space youtubers in an episode. That's incredible.
2:30 I'm sorry, I get how it works, but the idea of using uranium to protect against radiation is just a little too funny.
Electrolyte Sparky I know. When I heard that I thought, "Isn't that kind of like taking a toxin to avoid getting sick?"
@@davidroddini1512 that's what we do with so many things. Vaccines are literally bits of the virus.
Spent uranium isn't (that) radioactive but might do the trick for shielding but is very dense & heavy. Probably too dense to launch much of it. Ice, hydrogen or some metamaterial is probably what will be used for shielding until an electromagnetic means of deflecting radiation can be developed.
St3llarMemer you should’ve gone for mithridatisation, since you don’t take things that could hurt you with a vaccine, neither « live » virus or bacteria, nor functioning toxins.
Isaac you just keep coming of with these great videos.
Much respect from Australia.
I appreciate the Al Reynolds references in this.
Time to re-read pushing ice
25:45 Unless the blue shifted light and particles hitting one side get in some degree countered by quantum fluctuations on the other comparatively less bussy side. Also, depending on the shape of the ship's nose and how the structure is attached anything hitting the edges could be deflected in different vectors to avoid complete deceleration.
I think inertial dampeners would solve a lot of your concerns re: rapid acceleration/de-acceleration. You know ... like they have in ST or SG Atlantis. ;)
I mean. I really like this guys voice, it forces me to pay attention and makes it hard to zone out while watching and I often retain this info better than other channels due to then aberrant voice memory.
NASA: We need a long, thin, rounded craft designed to protect from pressure differentials and a harsh external environment.
USN Submarine fleet: Hold my beer.
And nuclear submarines got a long life powerplant and atmosphere processing to boot! Just gotta swap out that screw propulsion for something more practical...
Alexander Norman and upgrade the torpedoes with rocket engines
Nuclear submarines weren't designed for outer space, period
@@LeonidSaykin Redesign then
Spaceship design from this video is very good
I may come over as a bit of a pedant here, but as we are talking spaceships I will risk the irony ;0)
First I think most of the graphics are cool (which is, I suspect, their main point) .......... but
Many of the ships incorporate spinning sections to give psudo-gravity, however the designer has not taken in to account centripetal forces!
The ones that have a stationary core with a rotating disc or cylinder round it would have a problem spinning the outer without also spinning the core in the opposite direction. Unless the spin is generated by gyroscopic effect you would presumably have a force spinning both parts in opposite directions. If your spin Is generated by using a large mass as a gyroscope and effecting motion relative to that ...... you need eather a Large mass or a great diameter (or both) to react against!
For those with multiple spinning rings you could use reaction of one ring against the next, but even so having a "stationary" core would not be easy!
My personal favourite was the ship with multiple groups of 4 wheels all spinning on their own and their spindles centre! Anyone who has been on the fairground rides knows how that one feels! It would Not be good for extended (or even short) periods!
There is the added problem of course correction with them all. They would All act as gyroscopes and resist any course changes to their axis'. The ships would also need constant course correction to counter precession effects ..... unless you keep the spins constant And do not fly in a gravity well!
Compared to actually building any of them I suspect curing these problems would be relatively minor ;0)
A possible solution would be 3 spinning rings: two spinning in one direction and the middle one in the opposite direction, with said ring being the same mass as the two on the extremes combined, so they all end up having equal but opposite momentum on the plain of the middle ring, cancelling out, it would make it slightly harder to change course but it's only slightly
@@agustinvenegas5238 A bit more complex than that ;0) Your middle section would need to have twice the mass moment as the ends to "balance" ....... and then it would depend on the point you want the ship to pivot its axis on when turning! One way may be to use a gyroscope (or even one of your spinning rings ) to generate a point you can apply a turning force to.
Plenty late compared to when this was put out, but i just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work and amazing ideas. Im putting together a sci fi ttrpg for some friends. We're all big physics nerds in our own ways, and i wanted to make the space vessels of the world have a pleasant touch of realism. This video has given me lots of ideas for my sketch work and planning.
That sounds awesome, good luck!
"Look... you wanna know why I'm in that chair... and you're not? For the exact same reason why North is North, why the handsome guy always gets the girl, and why every spaceship in the universe is shaped like a cock. It's destiny, Rhys."
-Vasquez
Another thing that could be important: in case we ever develop FTL technology, having the entire fleet of spacecraft physically lock together for warp might have to be necessary in order for time dilation to affect all of a fleet uniformly. That way if a small fighter slowed down suddenly due to an impact it would not suddenly change time flow and experience a different reality than the one the other spacecraft would.
i kept hearing Valium not volume, that is a lot of pills lol :) 4:30. love your content as usual :) i would love a video on making energy with the earths magnetosphere.
If i was a teacher, middle or high, i'd give this as a weekend homework 'read', then have half hour Q&As for the next few classes. Few years later, would check back with the kids and count how many went full force into engineering, research, any sort of applied science etc.
I know the movie is flawed - as all Hollywood sci-fi - but I am impressed by the design of the Starship Avalon in "Passengers". What you think?
Yeah, made a surprising amount of sense for that kind of a movie. Elysium still stands as my favorite for realistic engineering and design, though Ghost in the Shell and Alita Battle Angel came close. Realistic in Alita's case being exploring the options for the problems facing individuals given the ability to replace ones body with a machine.
With as many hours of sci-fi I've written, read and watched, and all the space games I've played, it NEVER occurred to me to use a rock as the craft. Attach engines, start the rock moving, dig into it as you travel to expand and make the braking engines. Free shielding by burrowing inside, free materials to expand with, free water and O2 from the ice as well as all the other gasses and minerals you find. If there's gold or platinum on the rock the rare metals alone might pay for the whole trip. My world is officially rocked...
You might want to get a look at the Orks in Warhammer 40k
I always thought of space ship design as simple. Propulsion first, then function, then find somewhere to stick the meat bags.
This is a remarkable video, very well done
I would argue that a megatonne of iron is of no utility until you get it and can actually use it
FINANCIAL utility.
@Pixel Storm Getting access to huge amounts of new materials *will* devalue it somewhat, but so long as there is still a use for it it will have some value. In addition, when the material cost drops that allows more stuff to be made from it, which could drive demand back up. Of course the first few times it happens its a big deal, but by the time we are routinely hauling in stuff like that - and using it, in projects of ever growing scale - it should become just another part of the normal economy.
Fine, deliver it every 100 years or something. You will never run out of supplies.
And if your civilization is building megastructures like Dyson Spheres? A few megatons of material being brought in per day suddenly doesn't sound so far fetched.
@Pixel Storm There is nothing insurmountable about building a few sattilites around a sun, even if they are huge in scale. Do that a few billion times and you're well on your way to having a Dyson Sphere. It gets easier with good automation, and automation gets easier as you have access to more power and resources from the Dyson Sphere.
As for messing with orbital paths, that's something I have wondered about. But when I think about it, I think if you pulled the majority of your materials from the asteroid belt early on, that wouldn't have too much immediate effect on the planets. Granted, eventually you'll run out of large asteroids worth grabbing and need to start disassambling a small planet like Mercury... Or maybe not. You could use starlifting to get the materials you need directly from the sun. Since all the mass would still be at the center of the solar system, it wouldn't really effect orbital paths of planets very much.
But then I guess that does kind of defeat my original point of bringing in megatons of material for constructing a Dyson Sphere. Maybe not if you have a mass driver on Mercury slinging rocks I to a pre-established orbital paths around the sun for constructing components of the Dyson Sphere.
GASP - Isaac said "My ship"!
Whenever you go, take me with you!
What is cool is determined by what it can do? You mean like the
A-10 Thunderbolt II?🤔
Yeah, no coincidence the same guy fathered the F16.
The US really owes that guy a debt.
Your accent sounds like you stepped out of the 1880s Eastern USA. Its awesome.
Good thing this came out when I was sick.
I hope you get better soon!
I wish you would have took the time to look at the classic sci-fi space ships. We love listening the way you disseminate how such things are grounded in scientific reality and how much of it is speculative imagination of possible designs as well as other intricate details!
I hope one day you will make one such episode, the way you explain things and your soothing voice is amazing in captivating our interest and curiosity!
Great episode but I REALLY want to know where the design for the ship at 7:12 is from? That is a beautiful piece of art right there.
www.shutterstock.com/nb/video/clip-29217832-3d-futuristic-sequence-detailed-alien-spaceship-military
I LOVE the way this guy talks
Do an episode on rooting out corruption in cost plus contracting. #SLS
:) I might get mobbed
Not sure that is allowed by known physics. Maybe Isaac will put it in one of his Clarketech episodes?
Definitely Clarketech. But I had to try.
The answer is deregulation. If companies like SpaceX were allowed to do their thing unimpeded, the problem would go away. SpaceX is removing the SLS problem, of course, but it's taking longer than it had to.
@@dansands8140 please, giving companies free reign encourages corruption.
Look at the MIC.
I don't know if its his accent or a lisp but I love the way this guy talks!
You forgot one of the most potentially disastrous "oversights" in rotational design. the "Intermediate Axis Theorem"
Good reason to point straight at the star in the system. If you don't slow down, well, its a good energy sink.