A black hole starship is a theoretical idea for enabling interstellar travel by propelling a starship by using a black hole as the energy source. The concept was first discussed in science fiction, notably in the book Imperial Earth by Arthur C. Clarke, and in the work of Charles Sheffield, in which energy extracted from a Kerr-Newman black hole is described as powering the rocket engines in the story "Killing Vector" (1978).[1]
In a more detailed analysis, a proposal to create an artificial black hole and using a parabolic reflector to reflect its Hawking radiation was discussed in 2009 by Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland.[2] Their conclusion was that it was on the edge of possibility, but that quantum gravity effects that are presently unknown will either make it easier, or make it impossible.[3] Similar concepts were also sketched out by Bolonkin.[4]
Also a young scientist by the name of Mohamed Abdalla Tahoun the year of 2013 has concluded a thesis of a similar propulsion structure. That is formally based on creating a simulated black hole using mineral reaction. Under a theory of how a star is formed in a Nebula. The theory is when a mineral reaction in a nebula occurs in dark mater the reaction differs then in an atmosphere. Where in an atmosphere it would be explosive or react in a fashion different from that of a reaction in dark matter. Where in dark matter the reaction of the reacting minerals would be the generation of a gravity field. Which would attract more minerals into the gravity field that was generated with the original reaction. Which would increase the size of the gravity field and starts the building blocks of generating a star. To the time a star is disintegrated under pressure of its own gravity field. Ultimately leaving the Sphere gravity field to collapse in itself turning to a ring or cylindrical gravity field with nothing to Weight it down in place. so It travels at high speed of millions of miles per hour. With the center of the black hole’s ring gravity field radius is a bullseye point that is the highest pressure point in disintegrating matter or inward gravity. With the interlining of the ring gravity field being less instance then the center of the radius. He then proposed what if we create a gravity field with mineral reaction and rather then generate a star, we extract the reactions composition to utilize the gravity field. Which would be molded on a cylinder Mainframe that is in-lined with mineral reaction chambers which would have an alignment of swiveling gravity field injectors. That would keep the gravity field in revolution or spiral on the cylinder mainframe and also be a critical component in the navigation of the vessel with the orientation of the swiveling gravity field injectors. With other components Rotating the gravity field from the interlining to the outer surface of the mainframe. He would then propose that a daisy head (blades that would stack on top of each other to dilate or expand in radius to control the speed) on each end of the cylinder main frame to control the speed from smaller radius being low speed and larger radius to increase speed. He was then faced with a challenge of how to slow down the spacecraft. He would propose a antigravity engine alignment on the surface of the cylinder mainframe that would be in a comp strip that contains antigravity engines in each of the comp blades that would be fired in a specific sequence for different navigation, stabilizing and braking or halting system. This would be the thesis that he introduced to the world in construction engineering of the vessel propulsion engine form factor.
Advantages
Although beyond current technological capabilities, a black hole starship offers some advantages compared to other possible methods. For example, in nuclear fusion or fission, only a small proportion of the mass is converted into energy, so enormous quantities of material would be needed. Thus, a nuclear starship would greatly deplete Earth of fissile and fusile material. One possibility is antimatter, but the manufacturing of antimatter is hugely energy-inefficient, and antimatter is difficult to contain. The Crane and Westmoreland paper states:
On the other hand, the process of generating a BH from collapse is naturally efficient, so it would require millions of times less energy than a comparable amount of antimatter or at least tens of thousands of times given some optimistic future antimatter generator. As to confinement, a BH confines itself. We would need to avoid colliding with it or losing it, but it won't explode. Matter striking a BH would fall into it and add to its mass. So making a BH is extremely difficult, but it would not be as dangerous or hard to handle as a massive quantity of antimatter. Although the process of generating a BH is extremely massive, it does not require any new Physics. Also, if a BH, once created, absorbs new matter, it will radiate it, thus acting as a new energy source; while antimatter can only act as a storage mechanism for energy which has been collected elsewhere and converted at extremely low efficiency. (None of the other ideas suggested for interstellar flight seems viable either. The proposal for an interstellar ramjet turns out to produce more drag than thrust, while the idea of propelling a ship with a laser beam runs into the problem that the beam spreads too fast.)
Criteria
According to the authors, a black hole to be used in space travel needs to meet five criteria:[5]
has a long enough lifespan to be useful,
is powerful enough to accelerate itself up to a reasonable fraction of the speed of light in a reasonable amount of time,
is small enough that we can access the energy to make it,
is large enough that we can focus the energy to make it,
has mass comparable to a starship.
Black holes seem to have a sweet spot in terms of size, power and lifespan which is almost ideal. A black hole weighing 606,000 metric tons (6.06 × 108 kg) would have a Schwarzschild radius of 0.9 attometers (0.9 × 10–18 m, or 9 × 10–19 m), a power output of 160 petawatts (160 × 1015 W, or 1.6 × 1017 W), and a 3.5-year lifespan. With such a power output, the black hole could accelerate to 10% the speed of light in 20 days, assuming 100% conversion of energy into kinetic energy. Assuming only 10% conversion into kinetic energy, it would take 10 times more.[2]
Getting the black hole to act as a power source and engine also requires a way to convert the Hawking radiation into energy and thrust. One potential method involves placing the hole at the focal point of a parabolic reflector attached to the ship, creating forward thrust, if such a reflector can be built. A slightly easier, but less efficient method would involve simply absorbing all the gamma radiation heading towards the fore of the ship to push it onwards, and let the rest shoot out the back.[5][6] This would, however, generate an enormous amount of heat as radiation is absorbed by the dish.
Criticism
It is not clear that a starship powered by Hawking radiation can be made feasible within the laws of known physics. In the standard black hole thermodynamic model, the average energy of emitted quanta increases as size decreases, and extremely small black holes emit the majority of their energy in particles other than photons.[7][8] In the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Jeffrey S. Lee of Icarus Interstellar states a typical quantum of radiation from a one-attometer black hole would be too energetic to be reflected. Lee further argues absorption (for example, by pair production from emitted gamma rays) may also be infeasible: A titanium "Dyson cap", optimized at 1 cm thickness and a radius around 33 km (to avoid melting), would absorb almost half the incident energy, but the maximum spaceship velocity over the black hole lifetime would be less than 0.0001c (about 30 km/s), according to Lee's calculations.[8]
Govind Menon of Troy University suggests exploring the use of a rotating (Kerr-Newmann) black hole instead: "With non-rotating black holes, this is a very difficult thing...we typically look for energy almost exclusively from rotating black holes. Schwarzschild black holes do not radiate in an astrophysical, gamma ray burst point of view. It is not clear if Hawking radiation alone can power starships."[5]
In fiction
Arthur C. Clarke, Imperial Earth (1976)
Charles Sheffield, "Killing Vector" (1978)
Peter Watts, "The Freeze Frame Revolution" (2016)
In the Star Trek Universe, the Romulan D'deridex-class warbird uses an artificial quantum singularity as a power source for its warp propulsion drive.
In the 1997 Paul W.S. Anderson science fiction horror film Event Horizon, the eponymous starship uses an artificial black hole drive to achieve faster-than-light travel.
See also
Abraham–Lorentz force
Beyond black holes
Black hole electron
Hawking radiation
Kugelblitz (astrophysics)
List of quantum gravity researchers
Micro black hole
References
Sheffield, Charles, "Killing Vector," Galaxy Magazine, March 1978
Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland, "Are Black Hole Starships Possible" (ArXiv preprint 12 Aug 2009). Retrieved 7 April 2017.
Chown, Marcus (25 November 2009). "Dark power: Grand designs for interstellar travel". New Scientist (2736). (subscription required)
Alexander Bolonkin, Alexander, Life. Science. Future, lulu.com, 2011, pp. 198-199.
Tim Barribeau, "A Black Hole Engine That Could Power Spaceships", io9, Nov. 4, 2009
Jeff Lee "How to power a starship with an artificial black hole", io9, Jan. 6, 2014 (retrieved 7 April 2017)
Page, Don N. (1976). "Particle emission rates from a black hole: Massless particles from an uncharged, nonrotating hole". Physical Review D. 13 (2): 198–206. Bibcode:1976PhRvD..13..198P. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.13.198.
Lee, Jeffrey S. (March–April 2015). "Acceleration of a Schwarzschild Kugelblitz Starship". Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. 68: 105–116.
vte
Black holes
Types
Schwarzschild Rotating Charged Virtual Kugelblitz Primordial Planck particle
Black hole - Messier 87 crop max res.jpg
Size
Micro
Extremal Electron Stellar
Microquasar Intermediate-mass Supermassive
Active galactic nucleus Quasar Blazar
Formation
Stellar evolution Gravitational collapse Neutron star
Related links Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit White dwarf
Related links Supernova
Related links Hypernova Gamma-ray burst Binary black hole
Properties
Gravitational singularity
Ring singularity Theorems Event horizon Photon sphere Innermost stable circular orbit Ergosphere
Penrose process Blandford–Znajek process Accretion disk Hawking radiation Gravitational lens Bondi accretion M–sigma relation Quasi-periodic oscillation Thermodynamics
Immirzi parameter Schwarzschild radius Spaghettification
Issues
Black hole complementarity Information paradox Cosmic censorship ER=EPR Final parsec problem Firewall (physics) Holographic principle No-hair theorem
Metrics
Schwarzschild (Derivation) Kerr Reissner–Nordström Kerr–Newman Hayward
Alternatives
Nonsingular black hole models Black star Dark star Dark-energy star Gravastar Magnetospheric eternally collapsing object Planck star Q star Fuzzball
Analogs
Optical black hole Sonic black hole
Lists
Black holes Most massive Nearest Quasars Microquasars
Related
Black Hole Initiative Black hole starship Compact star Exotic star
Quark star Preon star Gamma-ray burst progenitors Gravity well Hypercompact stellar system Membrane paradigm Naked singularity Quasi-star Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Timeline of black hole physics White hole Wormhole
Hellenica World - Scientific Library
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/"
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
