Antimatter Production Satellite

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

A TEC can not cool something in space because it is only a heat pump and as I stated before there is nowhere to send the heat because you are in a vacuum.

This also uses energy, and can not create energy.

So A TEC would have the dual effect of speeding up the destruction of the submission, and reducing its output even further. This is regardless of the tech level of the TEC which as you are suggesting it be used is elementally an over unity Thermocouple.

I already stated TEC's couldn't cool this thing. :| And an alternate means could be found. Last chance to move on Uso before things disappear.

The only way to cool this would be with large radiator surfaces which will not function well close to a star for reasons that are common sense.

The submission would have to be kept a decent distance from a star to remain intact for any length of time, which would reduce its power intake even more, which would in turn mean that its production of anti-matter is still absurdly high.

I don't think distance from a star was ever mentioned in this submission, that was just an example from Vesper to do the math. So I guess my point is I don't know what your point is other than the thing about TECs. Bringing up cooling is just going to make this submission more difficult to get approved.

Uso said:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3au.html

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My concerns about the unmentioned qualifications of the site's author were answered when he referenced tvtropes on the main page. I also fail to see how wikipedia can be used as support for any argument.

Uso said:

Bringing up cooling is just going to make this submission more difficult to get approved.

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Because clearly Soresu is the one trying to shoot down this submission. Please just stop, you're escalating the debate into an argument that has ceased to be constructive or helpful. There's nothing more to be said until Vesper reviews the submission.

Actually Teddo, quite often, Wikipedia is directly quoted from textbooks. That's why they provide references when available. Check the references for the info if you don't trust Wikipedia.

Actually, it can't be done until I edit it.

Truthfully, I understood that I was probably pushing it, but I don't accept criticism unless there is fact to dispute it. What Vesper gave me was actual data to help me improve my design. And now I need some help with this.

Currently, I've increased the radius of the collector from 250 meters to 1 kilometer and the orbital radius from Vesper's 0.116 AU to 0.3 AU. Now, keeping information like Solar Output, Solar Radius, Cell Efficiency, and the Speed of Light the same, I went on with my calculations.


Something tells me I went wrong somewhere, cause if that's right...I'm making a lot more antimatter than I should be.

As stated heat engines (whatever form they are) do not destroy heat, they only move it around (thermodynamics forbids the "destruction" of heat). They can only produce energy when their is a 'useful' temperature difference from one side to the other (what constitutes 'useful' varying on the type of heat engine). In space you have the problem that the only cooling you can use passively is radiative cooling which is substantially less effective than the methods we are accustomed to (conduction and convection).

Also, if it helps anyone the generalized equations are as follows:

In regards to the calc Abwehran, you did not square the radius for the area at the top. It should be 4Pi*r^2, not 4Pi*r.

For some IRL reference, current concepts for solar power satellites have the collector areas in the range of 50-100 square km. This is possible (even easy) because other than rotating for stability they are under very little stress so they do not require much in the way of structural reinforcement.

Edit:
For a 500m-radius collector at 0.3 AU the ideal AM production is 0.1105 mg/s or 397.7 mg/hour.

For a 15km-radius collector (~700 sq. km) at 0.3 AU the ideal AM production is 99.44 mg/s or 357.97 g/hour.

Alright, this looks more realistic and it looks a lot better from before. I've got an increase of 259 mg/sec just by increasing the size of the collector. It probably would have been more if I kept it at the same distance, but then I'd have to run into being closer to the star than Mercury is to our own Sun.

Currently, this version creates about 442 mg/sec or 2.652 grams/hour. This is a much better than before.

Over all, not bad to start out.

Edit: Little mistake, grams not kilograms.

What if the system this solar satellite is in has an ice planet, and the Abwehrans set up an automated drone ship that would transport ice to the satellite and heat back to the ice planet to heat homes and/or factories there?

Wes said:

What if the system this solar satellite is in has an ice planet, and the Abwehrans set up an automated drone ship that would transport ice to the satellite and heat back to the ice planet to heat homes and/or factories there?

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Unfortunately, Wes, we're talking about enough heat to vaporize the satellite in a matter of seconds.


Here's another question: are you guys doing this math based on the maximum energy output of ANY star? Because depending on the type, it varies drastically. The most powerful ones radiate so much energy that they can't have planets due to the fact that matter can only exist in a gaseous state within a large radius of them.

Alright, this is probably the last time I'm going to attempt to increase the satellite's size. Though I have contemplated just using Vespers 15km radius design, I'd prefer and try to make my own measurements.

To do this, I increased the satellite's collector radius to 20km to make a surface area of 1,256 squared Kilometers. With the same 0.3 AU distance from the sun, I decided to use the new equations Vesper so graciously gave me.


This pretty much means it would be 177.9 mg/sec or 640.44 grams/hour. It was more of an experiment than anything else, but it is a decent amount of production.

Now, I need to make a decision. I could go with my 20km radius design and build clusters of 5 per solar system. This means a production of 76,852.8 grams of antimatter per day in a single solar system.

Or I can go with a smaller 1KM radius design I thought up of earlier with a production of 2.652 grams/hour. Making cluster of 20 satellites in a single system, I could get a production of 1,272.96 grams of antimatter per day.

True, when it comes to production amount, I get much more with the larger satellite than the smaller one. But the 1KM radius design would be cheaper to build over all.

Another choice would be to make two separate designs and make the smaller of the two for civilian corporation use while the larger design could be sold to other nations or kept in the Abwehran Star Empire.

Comment: If the Abwehrans now have the exclusive ability to produce antimatter cheaply using sunlight, why would you want to share that? Keep it to yourselves and sell the antimatter. Make a fortune.

The amount of energy that would be needed to haul useful amounts of ice for cooling would make it cost prohibitive. Larger satellites are actually going to have a easier time of cooling since they can fit a lot more area of radiator.

Why only 5 per system Abwehran? Even a 20-km radius is like a grain of sand in the Sahara compared to a star.

Teddo, this not some exotic technology. Abwehran just got a codified version out first. I would be more surprised if no other nation is using something similar. You also need to keep in mind that AM is not crazy expensive to the big nations. Yamatai uses it like water and I believe both the UOC and Nepleslians have substantial production capabilities.

The larger nations probably wouldn't even need these considering most of them, last time I checked, used femtomachines in the process to create Antimatter.

It may be different now since that was when I joined the site.

Anyway...you're quite right Vesper...I was just using that as an example. After all, the satellites now cost about 2 million KS a pop now.

Edit: Also, changes are complete.

Nepleslia doesn't use femtomachines to make it, fyi.

I guess you could say we get our antimatter in a similar fashion to what this submission describes...we just don't have anything written up. Perhaps because we love believing that antimatter is produced out of thin air, and love spraying the stuff around with reckless abandon even more.

Ah, interesting.

Oh well, once accepted, these things can be bought by anyone with the money for it (except for maybe pirates).

Oh, and just a reminder, this is edited and ready for more critiques.

Why not just put it into the orbit of a gas-giant or nebulae or abandoned planetoid of sufficient mass and have it conduct the heat down using some sort of elevator or probe?

I'm sure under the proper conditions, the thermal energy will conduct away into the giant if the potentials are right -- as opposed to back up the probe.



To be frank...

• 
  
  I'm surprised we don't have aetheric factories producing material to fill anti-matter bottles for special ammunition, smaller units and vessels...
  
  Maybe the probe also pulls matter back up for mining which within itself it distills, refines and crafts into parts and components for equipment - acting as a two-tier production facility.
  
  They'd be fantastic strategic targets in the SARP and their immense size and defenses would make for some truly epic roleplay if you were going to try and take one of these 15+ kilometer behemoths - Some in orbit, others centered in gas-giants, nebulae, even some in orbit around the very stars that form the heavens we all must look up to.
  
  Something, you must understand, that is so huge one could park a starship inside it and have full blown withhold-nothing attack/defense gameplay.
  Like a massive fortresses of strategic importance worth points - even the ruins would make a spectacular battleground for roleplay. I do believe the only two related objects would be Hoshi and the Wh'ki clusters.
  
  
  
  But still.
  
  Maybe I'm trying to rosy up a secret arms-race here of an entirely different sort from what we have seen previously -- a cold war of brutal covert gameplay for the amusement of all.
  
  
  Most likely, however, I'm just babbling.
  
  
  ...Who knows?

Most nations do use aether factories of some sort to produce anti-matter,

A 15km object is not large enough to be used as terrain for a space battle,

Moving the factory to a gas planet would vastly reduce the amount of energy available for anti-matter production,

and using a planet as a heat sink would inevitably cause the factory to be destroyed due to atmospheric friction and falling into the gravity well.

Why is it too small? You bring in proximity interdiction meaning achieving fractions of the speed of light would take hours, and mad ECM making it ridiculously difficult to target things suddenly making the battle-space that much larger...

APPROVED.

Thanks for being so flexible and patient, Matt.