Hyperdrive Propulsion Could Be Tested At the LHC

KentuckyFC writes "In 1924, the influential German mathematician David Hilbert calculated that a stationary mass should repel a particle moving towards or away from it at more than half the speed of light (as seen by a distant inertial observer). Now an American physicist has pointed out that the equal and opposite effect should also hold true: that a relativistic particle should repel a stationary mass. This, he says, could form the basis of a 'hypervelocity propulsion drive' for accelerating spacecraft to a good fraction of the speed of light. The idea is that the repulsion allows the relativistic particle to deliver a specific impulse that is greater than its specific momentum, an effect that is analogous to the elastic collision of a heavy mass with a much lighter, stationary mass, from which the lighter mass rebounds with about twice the speed of the heavy mass. Unlike other exotic hyperdrive proposals, this one can be tested using the world's largest particle accelerator, the LHC, which will generate beams of particles with the required energy (abstract). Placing a test mass next to the beam line and measuring the forces on it as the particles pass by should confirm the theory — or scupper it entirely."

Comments

Ramjet?

[JSBiff]

I was reading some science fiction once (I'm thinking maybe it was Larry Niven? Don't remember for sure). Anyhow, the author described a ship which used some sort of large electromagnetic 'scoop' to gather hydrogen gas from space (remember, space isn't a complete vacuum, and, the Interstellar Gas is believed to be about 89% hydrogen), to use as fuel (basically, the scoop in this theoretical ship narrowed down to a cone, and at the extreme minimal point of the cone, achieved compression necessary to cause fusion of the Hydrogen). It was sort of an interstellar fusion ramjet

Because of the problem you've mentioned, I've always thought that, somehow, this has to be the answer to the long-distance fuel problem - gather your fuel as you go, don't 'pack it all' at the beginning of the voyage.

Also, because fusion releases so much energy, it has a much better 'energy density' than current, conventional fuels. So, you can get more acceleration from smaller amounts of fuel mass.