• spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    ok i can see the steam turbine powering onboard electrical but explain me how the fuck you’re doing space propulsion and/or warp travel with steam

    unless you mean literally just blasting steam like a propellant, Wall-E With the Fire Extinguisher style. in which case you’re gonna run outta steam pretty fast

    • BaroqueInMind@piefed.social
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      1 month ago

      At some point in the future, it will be trivial to fold spacetime and tunnel through, which needs electricity to charge capacitors and shit because the fuel is energy. You think space travel will be done with gasoline engines?

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      Ion thrusters are an example of electricity used for space propulsion.

      In ion thrusters electricity is used to create a magnetic field that accelerate the propellant particles at very high speed. This way the propellant of used much more efficiently.

      • DahGangalang@infosec.pub
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        1 month ago

        So skimming through the wiki article, it sounds like it it’s still “throw something out the back” to generate thrust, which is largely the same problem as the Wall-E with a fire extinguisher problem another commenter made.

        Ion Thrusters sound significantly more efficient (in terms of velocity change vs fuel), but do I have the right idea on that?

        • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          Yes, ion thrusters still use conservation of momentum to generate thrust. They aren’t limited by how fast or how hot we can make something explode though, so we can shove way more energy into the stuff they’re throwing out the back. They’re basically tiny coil/railguns, using electricity to move individual ions really fast.

          In terms of efficiency, Ion thrusters are 4 to 40 times better than liquid fueled rockets. The draw back is that ion engines make very little thrust for the mass of the engine.

    • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      you use the steam to turn a spacetime-fabric-propeller which can gain traction on vacuum itself and propel the ship. simple stuff.

    • snoons@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      In a way. The energy is, in part, used to cook my food which creates an proton gradient across the inner membrane of my mitochondria which then forces those protons through a turbine.

      • spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        this is so stupid we should just bioengineer injectable chloroplasts for our skin and power ourselves directly with the sun

        (yes i am currently hungry but don’t feel like cooking how can you tell?)

        • snoons@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          I WISH

          Mitochondria + Chloroplast and accompanying UV damaga repairsystems would be poggers.

          Imagine being able to take a nap and eat at the same time. Totally plant coded and root pilled.

    • wia@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Solar, wind, tidal, RTG, DEC fusion are all options without steam

        • DahGangalang@infosec.pub
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          1 month ago

          Yeah. One uses the passage of a gas over rotating blades. The other uses water as it flows.

          Neither use the passage of gaseous water, so theyre totally different!

          /s

          • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 month ago

            We never moved away from windmills basically. Only solar is completely different, besides niche impractical things like piezo crystals

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        Does hydropower count as cold steam?

        Well I guess all wind power is also steam at a very low concentration heated by a fusion reaction.

    • nocturne@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      Yes, inside of every solar panel is water and tiny turbine. The sun heats the water, when it turns to stream it sounds the turbines to generate electricity.

        • nocturne@slrpnk.net
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          1 month ago

          Wind turbines use whales and birds, I think it is like in Norse mythology where the wolves Sköll and Hati chase the Sun and moon. But with wind you have whales chasing birds while they are strapped to the blades, this causes them to spin and that generates wind, which fans the flames of fires to boil water and that creates steam.

  • wrinkledoo@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Space ship science works differently. You don’t need “power” except for the computers, you just need “thrust” and any fuel you use is likely insufficient for long term travel.

    So we sailing the solar seas bois.(Literally, solar sails) unless warp drives are somehow real.*

    *Am not space boat science man.

  • Folstar@lemmus.org
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    1 month ago

    We’re already well on the way to having supercritical CO2 generators. Sure, it’s still a steam engine, but supercritical CO2 makes it sound so much sciencier.

  • Blackout@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    It’s like how evolution’s perfect form is a crab. Energy’s perfect form is spicy water bois

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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    1 month ago

    most FTL in scifi surpassed the use of fusion to power thier ships and only used a supplemental power, they went with anti-matter, and vacumn energy

  • call_me_xale@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    Pssh, you guys are still on gravity-fusion? My ship has magnetically-bottled antihydrogen, which is carefully fed into a specialized reaction vessel that annihilates it with ordinary hydrogen to produce unbelievable amounts of heat…

    …which is then used to boil water and force the steam through a turbine.

  • TheFogan@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    I invented a new power generation method!

    Amazing, is it actually new, or is it steam again

    … it’s steam again.

    • wia@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Lots of mars stuff is RTG powered, so no steam. if it makes you feel better it’s kind of like a power crystal in they metal is crystal…

      • Kowowow@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        Look if some mad scientist isn’t fighting some kind of animal heroe over them they don’t count as power crystals