Hyperdrive or Transporter

[Surlethe]

I just don't see WHY it's so un-nice...

I'm just going to jump in really fast here and point you to the slogan up top:

"Get your fill of sci-fi, science, and mockery of stupid people"

[jawbertsc]

I think transporters would have a greater ability for use as practical jokes. Minute change here and there and someone is given orange or purple skin and or hair. Transport cold water or stinky stuff over a sleeping person. Transport someone into the middle of nowhere as they are sleeping. The posibilites are endless. Also TCM is a cool byproduct that would end the domination from evil oil companies.

[Quadlok]

And how would it not be?

Even with a real life transporter, you still need to add ~60MJ/kj to get the thing to achieve escape velocity no matter HOW you do it.

I checked the numbers, and assuming you're buying power off the grid at around 5-7 cents a kwh, it costs around a third as much to use a transporter than to launch something normally. Power from a normal plant is a hell of a lot cheaper than huge tanks of liquid fuel.

You did point out the dangers of using a transporter under adverse conditions in one of your posts,

Um, no, I pointed out conditions where the thing DOESN'T WORK and is therefore useless. Hyperdrive doesn't have those disadvantages.

It doesn't neccessarily not work, it just heightens the chances of a fuckup to an unacceptable level. Even with hyperdrives, you're still sending up spacecraft by tying giant rockets to their ass end.

In any case, space launches are also quite risky and can be delayed or endangered by any number of natural or manmade circumstances.

Hyperdrive doesn't seem to have those limitations.

But the system to get it into orbit does. And there are all sorts of risks associated with hyperspace. A drive malfunction could send you hurtling off into oblivion at a million times the speed of light, or you could put the wrong coordinates in and smack into something. Given that we can't even get to Mars consistently, I wouldn't be to eager to see how well we can plot a course to the next system.

Its called "tracing a line back to the probes point of origin."

Don't be ridiculous. Even today, we use the gravity of planets to alter the course of our deep space probes. With something like hyperdrive, we could easily change the direction of the probe after its study of the destination system. What are the chances of your hypothetical hostile alien race being in the first solar system the probe reaches?

I'm assuming multiple probes, but I will admit that the possibility is a remote one. Still, I'd be happier if we didn't start poking around the galaxy before we've got the weapons technology and sheer numbers to back our shit up.

Besides, your criticism was that the hostile aliens would reverse engineer the technology and use it to come here. Its kind of hard to study any of its technology when the thing is ashes.

No, I said they'd realize the probe (which I'm assuming was in an unrecoverable state when discovered) had a better propulsion tech and go looking for who sent it.

[Xon]

I checked the numbers, and assuming you're buying power off the grid at around 5-7 cents a kwh, it costs around a third as much to use a transporter than to launch something normally. Power from a normal plant is a hell of a lot cheaper than huge tanks of liquid fuel.

A seriously non-trivial chuck of a rocket's mass is in the fuel. And trying to reuse the rocket and equipment which also goes up is a major problem.

Generating that amount of power would be easily doable with a few fission power plants hooked together to power the ground -> orbit transporter system. If you were going to build such a transporter which would become the hub of ground<->orbital transfers, it would pay to build it properly.

Also there is the question of moving mass down from orbit via transporter. If you can extract the 60MJ/kj from objected being transfered down (even with inefficencies) would go to making the entire ground<->orbit transfer that much more profitable.

[Lord Pounder]

I think transporters would have a greater ability for use as practical jokes. Minute change here and there and someone is given orange or purple skin and or hair. Transport cold water or stinky stuff over a sleeping person. Transport someone into the middle of nowhere as they are sleeping. The posibilites are endless. Also TCM is a cool byproduct that would end the domination from evil oil companies.

[Wyrm]

For better or for worse, I choose the transporter.

The biggest obsticle for spaceflight is getting out of the deep gravity well we're at the bottom of. This is why NASA is seriously considering the "celestial castle"; ie, a space tower. As ggs says, it takes a disproportionate amount of fuel to lift a payload into space for the ~60MJ/kg it should take under an ideal lift system.

Once we make getting in and out of our gravity well relatively easily, we can then start exploiting the resources of our solar system properly.

Hyperdrive is not useful for this because we also live under an immense mass shadow called "the atmosphere". There is, after all, about 14 lbs of air above every square inch of the Earth's surface, and that's a pretty substantial mass to plow through at FTL speeds. (Imagine crashing into solid steel at bitching speed, because the air will not have time to move out of the way!)

Since, as Norade explained, we do not get any safe hyperroutes along with our nifty new hyperdrive, an intrepid crew would have to spend a long time and much resources feeling its way through the galaxy, and we right now we have enough problems getting ourselves to Mars.

[Plushie]

Hyperdrive, if only because of the revolution it would cause in physics.

Transporters are at least theoretically possible given current knowledge of physics, they just require a control on a level current technology doesn't allow.

Hyperdrive though...faster than light information transfer and everything it entails. Think about it. Everything we know currently says it's impossible and the one or two ideas we have depend on something we aren't sure is possible (negative mass/energy). But a system of faster-than-light travel that doesn't involve either of them (and is so god damned fast) is just an insane proposition to anyone with even the slightest understanding of physics.

[General Zod]

For those of you that keep saying transporters are better due to fuel, isn't it a little bit stupid to assume that we'd get this nifty new technology, then be completely unable to use it due to our present limitations?

By that logic, I could argue that transporters would be worthless because we wouldn't have the targeting sensors to accurately direct the beams.

[jawbertsc]

For those of you that keep saying transporters are better due to fuel, isn't it a little bit stupid to assume that we'd get this nifty new technology, then be completely unable to use it due to our present limitations? .

but the ability to take an object and reduce it to energy would that not be total conversion of mater to energy. So transporter technology would yeild the holy grail of energy production. Naaah thats a bad idea the oil companies would be against it.

[/quoteBy that logic, I could argue that transporters would be worthless because we wouldn't have the targeting sensors to accurately direct the beams.[/quote]

you could always use fixed locations and have a equipment on both ends.

[General Zod]

but the ability to take an object and reduce it to energy would that not be total conversion of mater to energy. So transporter technology would yeild the holy grail of energy production. Naaah thats a bad idea the oil companies would be against it.

And remind me when we've -ever- seen it used in that fashion on the show? Right, never.

you could always use fixed locations and have a equipment on both ends.

Except my point was that all the arguments against hyperdrive have been incredibly piss poor so far.

[jawbertsc]

The biggest obsticle for spaceflight is getting out of the deep gravity well we're at the bottom of.

Why not build it in space? Send a bunch of probes out? how do we know hyper drive will not work in a gravity well? I would not so easy to dismiss FTL. My guess is we discover that before transporters. I just hope we get artifical gravity and reactionless thrusters too.

[Lord Pounder]

The biggest obsticle for spaceflight is getting out of the deep gravity well we're at the bottom of.

Why not build it in space? Send a bunch of probes out? how do we know hyper drive will not work in a gravity well? I would not so easy to dismiss FTL. My guess is we discover that before transporters. I just hope we get artifical gravity and reactionless thrusters too.

Yeah because those Interdiction Cruisers in the Star Wars universe, where the tech comes from you fucking gaunch, just frightened ships into staying put. Do you actually think before you type or is you head just hat rack?

[jawbertsc]

[/quote]Tell me, are you any relation to Ryan Kaufman or Dark Moose?
I'm really not in the mood to take any of this "SW is fiction thus it is not bound by any scientific or logical law" bullshit right now.[/quote]

nope never heard of those folks.

[/quote]This thread is in Star Wars vs. Star Trek, you buffoon. We are refering to the SW variety hyperdrive (which has an established method of function, ala Saxton). [/quote]

I apologize one tried thinking outside the box and traveled the forbidden path of original thought. Your anger is justified I should go put myself into time out or something

[Ghost Rider]

Split the rest because at that point he was being a retard more then he usually is.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=78618

[Prozac the Robert]

Hyperdrive, if only because of the revolution it would cause in physics.

Transporters are at least theoretically possible given current knowledge of physics, they just require a control on a level current technology doesn't allow.

Hyperdrive though...faster than light information transfer and everything it entails. Think about it. Everything we know currently says it's impossible and the one or two ideas we have depend on something we aren't sure is possible (negative mass/energy). But a system of faster-than-light travel that doesn't involve either of them (and is so god damned fast) is just an insane proposition to anyone with even the slightest understanding of physics.

Transporters are more impossible than you think. Current quantum mechanics rules out knowing enough about something to break it down and put it back together exactly as it was. Remember the 'Heisenburg Compensator'? It's a trek gizmo that's suposed to get around this problem.

Think of it this way, there is no known physics that would allow you to go faster than the speed of light, but there is some fairly solid physics stopping a transporter working.

Finding out that quantum mechanics is wrong is probably of much more interest to physicists than finding a FTL mechanism.

(Unless the hyperdrive breaks something else of course, then it's probably a wash).

[Darth Wong]

Transporters are more impossible than you think. Current quantum mechanics rules out knowing enough about something to break it down and put it back together exactly as it was. Remember the 'Heisenburg Compensator'? It's a trek gizmo that's suposed to get around this problem.

Except that there is no reason to believe that you actually need quantum-level resolution. If you put together a human being with all of the atoms in the right place, what difference should it make if there are quantum-level inaccuracies? Does any part of the operation of the human body actually rely upon quantum-level accuracy?

[Ted C]

Discovering the principles behind hyperdrive is nice and all, but without any hypermatter on hand, good luck trying to get one to work.

It seems to me that in order to discover hyperdrive, you have to discover the prerequisite supporting technologies that make it work.

[Darth Wong]

By the same kind of logic that Matt Huang is using, we could point out that the transporter would be useless without the equally incredible invention of the "subspace scanners" that are required in order to make it work. It seems quite pointless and in no way relevant to the intent of the thread.

[PayBack]

I thought I recalled reading that you can't know enough about something WITHOUT destroying it. But with it's destruction you could learn everything about it. That's why I always assumed transporters must destroy the original to obtain the information neccesary.

It was something about not observing the orginal but the changes observed by it's destruction or some such. Sorry this was ages ago and I can't provide links but hopefully someone here knows more about it than I do and knows what I'm refering to? Otherwise here's 30 seconds you'll never get back sorry.

[Ghost Rider]

The rest of thread isn't bad...but the moron has been excised for pointless spam.

[darthbob88]

Speaking for myself, I'd rather have hyperdrive and FTL travel than transporters and being able to move people about quickly. For short, sublight rendezvous, you can get by with the old rocket engine. About the only place I can see transporters as being more useful than the alternative is in infiltration and fast deployment of forces. This assumes, of course, that the transporters aren't being jammed by any of the wossnames that screw them up in ST.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

The corpse of this thread has arisen! The dead walk the Earth!

Something I'd like to point out now though - Hyperdrive would be nice and all, but exactly what in Christ's name would it accomplish beyond 'HUMANITY CONQUERS OUTER SPACE' dick-waving? You still have to use conventional methods to enter and leave the atmosphere (well, at least enter it, if you can micro-jump into the vacuum) which would make our great Colonial project not exactly cost-effective. Sure, pride, spreading our genes throughout the galaxy, and so on and so forth would be great, but it doesn't really solve any of our problems.

With transporters, we can colonize this solar system with great ease since we can start teleporting stuff into orbit (as to the "In the real world, they would violate CoE so nuh uh!" argument, remember that you're arguing for a faster-than-light transportation engine), which has essentially infinite amounts of resources to sustain us, and we can still get to interstellar colonisation later we end the dependence of the entire world on oil, transport between regions becomes effortless, pollution, hunger, energy, etc. all become things of the past.

Rather than the 'Rar alien suns under the yoke of MAN' option, I choose the pragmatic one.

[PayBack]

Well one reason I voted Hyperdrive is due to fear of Teleporters being used for humans and regular transport disappearing. When I set of on a journey I want to experience what's at the destination, but with teleportation I don't get to experience anything after being disintergrated.

[Sikon]

I checked the numbers, and assuming you're buying power off the grid at around 5-7 cents a kwh, it costs around a third as much to use a transporter than to launch something normally. Power from a normal plant is a hell of a lot cheaper than huge tanks of liquid fuel.

Calculations for the one-third figure? Electricity costs are less but orders of magnitude less rather than just like two-thirds less.

I think you must have calculated based on electricity versus fuel costs alone for some fuel type, which isn't appropriate at all in this case, unless you mean by "launch something normally" doing so with much better launch vehicles rather than those of today. There is a lot more expense in current launch vehicles than fuel cost.

Here's one illustration:

The Atlas D had a flyaway unit cost (rocket cost) of $14.21 million converted to 1985 dollars, which is $26.6 million in 2006-dollars.

The 110700 kg of propellant used by it, 110.7 metric tons, was comprised of liquid oxygen and kerosene, its LR-89-5 and LR-105-5 engines using such at an 2.25 mixture ratio by mass, 76.6 metric tons of LOX and 34.1 metric tons of kerosene.

Using 1956 prices, the kerosene fuel cost $0.05 per kilogram, which is about $0.37 per kilogram in today's dollars, so the fuel expense for the Atlas D was about ($0.37/kg * 34100 kg) = $12600 in today's dollars. Liquid oxygen cost $0.04 per kilogram in 1959, about $0.30/kg in today's dollars, $300 per metric ton, like another $23000 in today's dollars for the 76.6 tons of it.

The preceding cost for the fuel and oxidizer of about $0.04 million compares to the rocket cost of $27 million.

The Atlas D was originally developed in 1959, a modified version of a military ICBM that was made with little regard to cost rather than size for its military mission, but launch vehicles really haven't improved very much in the half-century since then. Indeed, for example, although the Atlas D was capable only of delivering a 1360 kg payload to low earth orbit, the enormous $1300 million total cost per launch of the modern Space Shuttle does not compare very favorably even relative to its larger payload mass, though some launch vehicles are significantly better ... and the situation compared to fuel costs might one day change through funding development of different rockets or mass drivers if factors like the energy cost myth didn't make current launch vehicle economics so politically acceptable.

***************

Transporters versus hyperdrives:

If one skips concerns about misuse of transporters and the kill/clone debate (since many in the public would tend to use them on people and not only cargo, short of near-universal opposition), it may depend on the timeframe of greatest concern.

Helping mankind get past these particularly critical years for survival before sufficient expansion into space is a valid concern and one that could be helped by direct and indirect use of the transformer, from orbital transport to environmental uses as others suggested.

On the other hand, since FTL travel is probably impossible in the real universe, it would be sad to forever have the missed opportunity of the hyperdrive, not able to be remedied by mankind even in a million years.

Admittedly, the solar system and other star systems reachable without FTL already have enough trillions of quadrillions of tons of resources to support more vast populations, varied artificial worlds, and greater civilization than typical sci-fi depicts in an entire galaxy. It could take a while to disassemble and form the enormous amount of material in even one large asteroid or moon into astronomical numbers of space habitats, artificial worlds.

But, still, what a loss for mankind to never see countless galaxies. Reaching interplanetary space inexpensively takes little enough to occur with proper development of real-world technology that hyperdrive needing activation outside of a gravity well might be indirectly just the catalyst needed to end the status quo.

[SirNitram]

The corpse of this thread has arisen! The dead walk the Earth!

Something I'd like to point out now though - Hyperdrive would be nice and all, but exactly what in Christ's name would it accomplish beyond 'HUMANITY CONQUERS OUTER SPACE' dick-waving? You still have to use conventional methods to enter and leave the atmosphere (well, at least enter it, if you can micro-jump into the vacuum) which would make our great Colonial project not exactly cost-effective. Sure, pride, spreading our genes throughout the galaxy, and so on and so forth would be great, but it doesn't really solve any of our problems.

With transporters, we can colonize this solar system with great ease since we can start teleporting stuff into orbit (as to the "In the real world, they would violate CoE so nuh uh!" argument, remember that you're arguing for a faster-than-light transportation engine), which has essentially infinite amounts of resources to sustain us, and we can still get to interstellar colonisation later we end the dependence of the entire world on oil, transport between regions becomes effortless, pollution, hunger, energy, etc. all become things of the past.

Rather than the 'Rar alien suns under the yoke of MAN' option, I choose the pragmatic one.

The pragmatic one would be the one that understands that FTL allows us to colonize distant stars. The vasty majority of every species to evolve on Earth is extinct.. And this holds true throughout the system. FTL allows us to escape just about every catastrophe this planet and this system has planned for us, and should even allow us to spread to the point where the periodic neutron flashes that scour the galaxy would not wipe us out.

The transporter carries with it far more dangers, capacity for error, and ethical questions than simply going forth and colonizing. To say nothing of the wealth of resources an FTL society can tap into.