Sci-fi thermonuclear reactor
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 8:15 pm
Hello everyone!
I'm trying to write scifi book and need some tips. I'm not good with the nuclear science as many people here, hope someone will give good points on this.
The book is about sub-light spaceship slowly travelling to other star, to build the human colony. It has pulse thermonuclear engine with proton-boron fuel charges, exploding outside of the ship after compression by large number of very efficient lasers and superconducting magnets. Obviously, the ship needs some kind of energy source, compatible with the engine's fuel. I'm thinking of pulse thermonuclear source, where same fuel charges do explode inside of the reactor, filled with amount of a substance. This heats up the substance and allows to produce the electricity for spaceship and colony's systems by utilizing the heat and/or direct fusion power usage (by another "magic" device with good efficiency).
Does laser-driven compression looks good for this? I know it does produce quite small surplus of energy in our real world, but will do it better if we would have super-lasers with 99% efficiency (or so) in large numbers? It is possible to create some kind of munroe effect (like in anti-tank warheads) within thermonuclear fusion fuel to initiate fusion reaction by exploding smaller charges around main fuel charge if we could precisely shape these laser arrays?
How small the reactor could be to produce tens of megawatts? I don't really care about shielding as the ship doesn't have alive humans on and the colony is on an empty planet.
I'm trying to write scifi book and need some tips. I'm not good with the nuclear science as many people here, hope someone will give good points on this.
The book is about sub-light spaceship slowly travelling to other star, to build the human colony. It has pulse thermonuclear engine with proton-boron fuel charges, exploding outside of the ship after compression by large number of very efficient lasers and superconducting magnets. Obviously, the ship needs some kind of energy source, compatible with the engine's fuel. I'm thinking of pulse thermonuclear source, where same fuel charges do explode inside of the reactor, filled with amount of a substance. This heats up the substance and allows to produce the electricity for spaceship and colony's systems by utilizing the heat and/or direct fusion power usage (by another "magic" device with good efficiency).
Does laser-driven compression looks good for this? I know it does produce quite small surplus of energy in our real world, but will do it better if we would have super-lasers with 99% efficiency (or so) in large numbers? It is possible to create some kind of munroe effect (like in anti-tank warheads) within thermonuclear fusion fuel to initiate fusion reaction by exploding smaller charges around main fuel charge if we could precisely shape these laser arrays?
How small the reactor could be to produce tens of megawatts? I don't really care about shielding as the ship doesn't have alive humans on and the colony is on an empty planet.