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Re: Cyclers 1: The Interstellar Cycler
by James M. Essig on Friday October 13, @01:09AM
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| I would like to mention the possibility of gravity assists using blackholes if and when such objects can be pricisely located (for safety reasons). Perhaps a cycler can approach a blackhole of stellar mass range close enough to obtain a very mildly relativistic boost in kinetic energy and velocity without coming so close to the blackhole such that the blackholes tidal forces damage the craft or to injure persons traveling on the craft. If larger blackholes can be pinpointed, such as socalled mid range blackholes (those with masses of 1,000 to 10,000 solar masses) these blackholes may offer a larger increase in relativistic velocity because of their more extensive strong gravity fields and their reduced external tidal effects as is associated with increased blackhole mass. Some blackholes may also have extremely strong magnetic fields associated with their formation according to experts within the respective fields of study. Perhaps a cycler could get close enough to a strong magnetic field as such to take useful advantage of the Lorentz Force acting on the cycler. If I am not mistaken, I recall that the magnetic fields within close proximity to such black holes can theoretically approach or even surpass 10 billion Tesla.
Another possibility regarding spinning blackholes, especially larger blackholes, is to take advantage of the phenomena known as "reference frame dragging" wherein the spinning blackhole drags the spacetime in its vicinity as it rotates. An object entering this field would presumably be accellerated or dragged along with its spacetime location. Perhaps any one of these effects (e.g., gravity assist, Lorentz Force, and reference frame dragging) or conbinations thereof can be used to facilitate strong gains in relativistic velocity.
One might also consider obtaining gravity assists and or Lorentz Force effects from white dwarfs and/or nuetron stars. Note however that radiation within close proximity to some blackholes, nuetron stars (e.g., pulsars), and white dwarfs (e.g., sources of certain types of repetitive nova) could fry the cycler if one approaches overly radiatively active bodies as such and/or approaches these stellar bodies from the wrong directions.
I do not know if the above ideas have been considered before regarding cyclers and since these concepts seem obvious to me for consideration, I would not be surprised if they have been considered before. Regardless of whether these concept have been well thought out before, I present them anew here mainly because of an article I read in a recent Washington D.C. area dailly newspaper (I forget which paper)that indicated that the Milky Way Galaxy may be "peppered" with billions of stellar sized blackholes. If so, such blackholes may be useful for accellerating cyclers. |
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