Nuclear Engineer Reacts to How to Win an Interstellar War by Kurzgesagt



Original Video @kurzgesagt https://youtu.be/tybKnGZRwcU?si=aU19VgiMjCSZQkPH

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31 thoughts on “Nuclear Engineer Reacts to How to Win an Interstellar War by Kurzgesagt”

  1. Interesting note about missiles: Most modern intercontinental ballistic missiles are already made to travel outside the atmosphere on a suborbital trajectory, using the exact same rocket engines we have on civilian spacecraft. Just strap a booster stage on them and they'll go to Mars no problem.
    …Or we could.. Use them to transport thousands of tonnes of something that isn't bombs to Mars or Europa or something.. Too bad missile people are busy with war stuff nowadays

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  2. This is an idea that might happen. We could possibly make an Alcubierre drive and shoot it to the destination.

    Even though this seems quite crazy, there has been some recent developments on the theory. Erik Lentz, a theoretical physicist, published a new theory which eliminated the need for negative mass. However, there are still 2 major issues. The positive mass requirement is still quite high, and getting it to FTL speeds is also another issue.

    Even though I don’t have any insight on how to get it to FTL speeds, one could possibly starlift the sun to get the positive mass required to make an Alcubierre drive. Then the next step would to accelerate it as fast as possible. Maybe we could use lasers around the sun and a solarsail to push it close to lightspeed.

    Getting the Alcubierre drive faster than light is an issue which I don’t have a solution for, but building solitons in spacetime using positive mass provided through starlifting is an option for a type 2 civilisation.

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  3. I think the laser would be cheaper – granted, it would consume all the energy of the Dyson swarm (i.e. 1% of the star output) for firing, but you would need to fire it for a few hours tops. You would have to wait 80 years to confirm the hit, sure. But you could spend the 80 years harnessing the Dyson swarm for other stuff (like producing antimatter for the missiles 😉).

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  4. for those who dont know, from my knowledge i think that the thing that causes things to become "radioactive" is that radioactive material gets on it, radiation doesnt make stuff radioactive

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  5. 4:28
    The mirror is only "a million km wide" if you can synchronize the the lasers as an interferometer and optical interferometers are currently impossible even on a benchtop. You'd need to be able to align all your moving satellites to nm scale precision in real time.

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  6. With this technology a smart thing to do would be just taking a rock from space and accelerate it with a smaller engine without using this much energy and material, if a rock the size of the one that wiped out dinosaurs hits earth with 99% speed of light then yeah we ded.

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  7. You can't focus a light source to more than its source surface brightness. This is a direct result if the second law of thermodynamics. your beam would be sun sized not earth sized.

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  8. I now want to know the timeline process of first contact with a friendly alien civilization that believe they would benefit from having us as allies. From the first signal, to saying hello back and forth and learning each other's languages, to finally meeting in person.

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  9. 17:13, also if the Earth becomes sterile, nothing will rot or decay.
    Things on land will desiccate, but things in the oceans won't. Life forms would be intact, mushy fossils, just floating, like something stored in an ocean sized jar for million of years until tidal forces, erosion, and tectonic shifts grind the larger things into pulp.

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  10. I know, lets use an entire star, convert it into 5 lasers and only blow up 5 small rocky planets. Yeah, thats a way better idea.

    Yeah, that starwars one is incredibly dumb. A star, by merely being near a planet, will literally vaporize it. Many hot jupiters meet this fate, so some piddly rocky planet ain't gonna fare that well. Its so inefficient, its not even funny

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  11. Not sure why you're saying, that the laser would be the most expensive of the 3. The laser does not need to be "on" for 42 years – it needs to be "on" for just a bit over half a rotation of Earth – if they can build a dyson sphere capturing 1% of their star's light, pretty surely they can overcome not having input from that energy source for ~ 12 Earth hours. The problem I see with the laser, is the "a million km wide" lens, that would need to be able to sustain the "1% of their star's light" energy for said 12 Earth hours.

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