Prototypes

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Hi I am looking for some prototype military vehicles or maybe prototype technology that could change the world.

So far the only ones I can find are

Airships being used like Star Destroyers.... well as aerial aircraft carriers.
Lasers may not be handheld but can be used for wind scale damage
Fuel cells may reduce oil purchases from Middle East.

Let discuss away!!!!
 
Airships or airborne aircraft carriers have practical, as well as technological, problems that will keep them from being made. Lighter-than-air vehicles (like blimps and hot-air balloons) of such great size are too slow and large, making them very easy to shoot and too inefficient and hard to manage for commercial uses. Heavier-than-air vehicles require constant energy use to stay up (as in thousands of pounds of fuel even for a normal-sized jet to fly for just a few hours), and it's worse the bigger the vehicle is. Militarily, a regular aircraft carrier or weapon-ship (frigate, cruiser, destroyer, battleship) has no disadvantage compared to a flying version so there'd no point in bothering even if it could be done.

Lasers are being worked on for possible future use in airplanes such as the F-35 because of their long range and instantaneous delivery. The same features would also probably make them good for anti-aircraft defense of ground facilites and major sea ships, which could handle the mass and power requirements better than an airplane could. So far, it hasn't yet been possible to make one small enough that's also powerful enough. What is "wind scale damage"?

Hydrogen fuel cells are not a power source but a power storage medium; you still have to charge them up somehow, whereas oil in the ground is already charged for you. So using them takes us straight to the question of how to generate electricity. And without building new dams, the best way to do that for now is nuclear fission. It's proven, it's safe despite the propaganda to the contrary from environmentalists who seem bent on working AGAINST the environment, new techniques can actually use old waste as fuel again to extract 20 times as much power from it and suck out almost all of the radioactivity, and the known fuel supply is enough to sustain current consumption rates for at least a hundred centuries (if not thousands of them).
 
Con't remember much now but I rememeber that there was a prototype cat built which ran on sea water. the problems with the design were that the car cost around £5 million to produce (though I think reasearch time was also added) and there was a complication with explosions in the event of a crash as they were more powerful than regular petrol cars. I think I saw this on Top Gear
 
Hindenburg_burning.jpg
Sorry I mean Wide Scale Damage... Well since we cannot have the power to shrink the lasers to blaster size so it might be more practical to use it as a wide area damage weapon

Well about Fuel cells they need to be charged?? and I thought we can be free from a oil-based economy for good and we better do it soon... The more oil we buy from Mid East the more terror we fuel. If you know what I mean

Hey what about ammonia fuel look in this site... but I am still skeptical..."The Ammonia Economy," ME Online Web Exclusive, July 10, 2003
Ammonia Cracker for Fuel Cell Hydrogen Supply

And about lighter than air gases, is Nitrogen at room temp or even heated up a better choice as a gas subsitute to hydrogen since you know about the hindenberg blimp that crashed..
 
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They actually proved that the Hindenberg caught fire not because of tje hydrogen but because they used a new form of protective paint on the outside of the ship = the new paint was like coating it in paraphin - high combustable. They attribute the initial spark which started the fire to be caused by isolated sections of the hull fabric building up electrical charge and jumping (Sparking) to another section - ignighting the outside - the hydrogen inside just added to the fire ball.
(I think I might have invented some new words in that!)
On another note there is a move to bring back ariships as a tourist attraction.
 
Ok... this is something new....

Hey I wonder if it's possible to attach a ultrasonic vibrator to an blade of a sword... I heard that bone saws or blade are like that...
 
I think the saws they use to remove plaster casts work like this in some way. So they won't cut the patient should a slip occur, but couldn't swear to it!
Surely it would vibrate somewhat through the handle though? I mean a chainsaw vibrate like hell.
*wanders out side to experiment with batery powered motor an jo*
 
That's means if it attached to a sword, it would be nearly as deadly as a lightsaber right?
 
Um no. At least I dont think so. It would have to a saw toothed blade to really get the tear and then cut. However it might increase to cutting power. Contrare to popular opinion most swordfighting forms are aiming to Poke 'em with the short pointy end.
A laser is basically what a light saber would be and they are used in industry as part of CADCAM and to cut through sheet steel.

I want to experiment a little though this sounds like quite good fun.
 
Delvo said:
Hydrogen fuel cells are not a power source but a power storage medium; you still have to charge them up somehow, whereas oil in the ground is already charged for you. So using them takes us straight to the question of how to generate electricity. And without building new dams, the best way to do that for now is nuclear fission. It's proven, it's safe despite the propaganda to the contrary from environmentalists who seem bent on working AGAINST the environment, new techniques can actually use old waste as fuel again to extract 20 times as much power from it and suck out almost all of the radioactivity, and the known fuel supply is enough to sustain current consumption rates for at least a hundred centuries (if not thousands of them).
Click to expand...

I have to disagree with you there on nuclear fission. People treat it like it's going to solve all our problems, when it will only add to it really. We may have enough uranium to sustain our current consumption rates, but most of the world's power comes from oil. To make the same amount of energy with fission power we'd have to vastly increase the amount of uranium ore being dug up and enriched and I think the estimates put the timeframe on depleting the Earth's supply of it at about a few decades rather than a few millennia. Now fusion, that might be the answer, should we manage to get it working to a viable degree. It leaves no radioactive waste (I think, not sure if the helium it produces is a different isotope to normal stuff) and the components are easily available (deuterium can be extracted from seawater and so can tritium I think). Short of that, we can always have an economic and ecological apocalypse and go back to subsistence-level production =P


On the topic of lasers, I believe the American army have to done some R&D into it and are testing a bunch of them - COIL and deuterium fluoride. COILs would be what you want for anti-aircraft weaponry, since metals absorb it's wavelengths very well, and hence bears the brunt of the heat. Deuterium fluoride ones are a bit less practical for man-portable weapons, since one of the reactants is nitrogen trifluoride (the oxidizer I think) which is rather poisonous. Still, could replace conventional large guns on ships if they manage to get the production, maintenance and running costs lower than regular guns. That's the main problem with lasers though - what they can do, conventional lead exploded out of a barrel can do better and cheaper.
 
thecommabandit said:
We may have enough uranium to sustain our current consumption rates, but most of the world's power comes from oil.
Click to expand...
I was talking about power consumption rates, not fissile metal consumption rates. That's if fission were to take over all power production in the world.

thecommabandit said:
Now fusion, that might be the answer, should we manage to get it working to a viable degree. It leaves no radioactive waste (I think, not sure if the helium it produces is a different isotope to normal stuff) and the components are easily available (deuterium can be extracted from seawater and so can tritium I think).
Click to expand...
No radioactive waste, and fuel available from any water source. (Only a tiny fraction of hydrogen is one of the heavier isotopes that human-made fusion requires, but a bucket holds lots and lots and lots of hydrogen atoms.) The only obstacle is that we can't actually do it. :D A site was recently chosen for a large facility to be built in southern France, for a multi-national cooperational group to conduct experiments in fusion. If successful, this lab would, after finding a way to make it work, switch from experimental mode to application mode and go online as the world's first fusion power plant. And although it's a multi-national effort, the location just happens to be in a country that's almost all run on fission right now. It's probably under construction by now, actually.

thecommabandit said:
On the topic of lasers... could replace conventional large guns on ships if they manage to get the production, maintenance and running costs lower than regular guns. That's the main problem with lasers though - what they can do, conventional lead exploded out of a barrel can do better and cheaper.
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Ships no longer have those big guns anymore anyway. But keep in mind that lasers can't fall in an arched path over the horizon to a target on the surface. That's why I specified aircraft-carried and anti-aircraft applications (which is not what the big guns were ever used for); they're so high up that they can see and be seen in a straight line from a much longer distance away so you don't need your projectiles to follow a path that curves down to get to them as you would with surface targets beyond the horizon.
 
OK... this place is getting a little more lively....

Hey you guys heard of aerogel? I have seen demo of this material, it's amazing.
 
Yeah, found an article or something on aerogel a while ago and was in awe of it. Not only does it have incredible properties (seen the pictures with an unharmed flower on a block of aerogel above a bunsen flame?) but the name sounds really cool and it looks all space-age. Perfect if you're writing some sci-fi =D I actually used it in a (now redundant) concept for a laser rifle as the cooling apparatus - I used its porousity (is that even a word?) to hold liquid nitrogen, since this kind of laser generated craploads of heat.
 
Saw arogel on the show done by Hamster Hammond(top gear) - guy held his hand over a naked bunson flame with the gel on - no burns - mirical stuff though it is scarily closer to the fire proof houses of Faranheit - so lock up your books for safty.
 
Woodsman - if its the same stuff I am thinking of then it was developed by a man in shed (I kid you not) and is a chemical which is extreamly fire resistant to the point that when covering a surface the obect will not catch fire. That is not to say that it will not be damaged by the fire, but it will not combust itself, thus containing the fire and minimising the damages.
 
Wow. Pity I don't have a shed, who knows?

I heard of some stuff that is so light it almost floats in air and yet that also has pretty good insulation qualities it was in GBoR I believe....

I'm just waiting untill they can process Spiders silk into woven farbics of quality and ropes of useable size and length. This is somat thats always intruiged me.
 
Aerogel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hey maybe it can fill the inside of a hybrid airship... Maybe it's pumped with either helium or nitrogen for buoyancy then using aerogel as a gas storage.

Errr... but it won't be good for the accounts..... and is nitrogen lighter than air?
 
Air is roughly 78% Nitrogen 20% being oxygen
RAM N = 14, O = 16 So nitrogen would be about level in air possible slightly lighter. I.e a balloon filled with Nitrogen would stay at whatever level you placed it and should neither rise or fall. Although it will do due to the weight of the balloon.
Lighter than air; Helium is your best bet by some way.
 
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