Rocket Winter: Rocket Series, #3

By D.W. Patterson

Rocket Winter: A Novella

 

Jack's idea would truly change the world. But creating a new kind of rocket engine had its costs.

 

Jack had failed once and almost died.

 

Now he had failed a second time and it looked like it would be the last. Unless he found support.

 

Then he found out through his mom that his dad, though long dead, had left the financial support he needed. And his mom, of course, was his number one supporter. And then there was Janie …

 

Rocket Winter is the third story, a novella, in the author's Manifold Earth Universe: Rocket Series. Beginning in the near future and extending into the far future, the Manifold Earth Universe extrapolates future humanity's struggles, failures, and successes in moving out into the vast cosmos.
 

Rocket Series suggested reading order:

 

Rocket Summer: A Short Story

Rocket Fall: A Short Story

Rocket Winter: A Novella

Rocket Spring: A Short Novel

Hard Science Fiction – Old School.

Human-Created-Content.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D.W. Patterson
• Release date: Apr 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224618286

Book preview

To Sarah

CHAPTER 1

Xplore Physics Online

Topic: Mach Thruster

(Note that the following is for the old form of Mach thruster because it lends itself to a better explanation.)

A Mach rocket thruster is constructed with three layers of material. The first layer is made up of a material (usually capacitive) which has a large capacity for internal energy changes when a voltage is applied and it charges. This increases the energy and through the relativistic formula, increases the  mass.

Next is the actuator layer, originally made of a PZT (lead-zirconium-titanate) composite called the stack. This layer when driven by a sinusoidal voltage will expand and contract. (In later designs the PZT stack replaced the capacitive layer because it also has a  capacity for internal energy change.)

The final layer is made of a strong metal (the rocket body in application) that provides the support and the local reaction mass for the rest of the stack.

As the capacitive layer is driven by a sinusoidal voltage its internal energy increases and decreases, therefore its mass also increases and decreases.

Now, if the actuator is in expansion as the capacitive layer increases in mass the local reaction mass will be pushed one way. Next, as the actuator is in contraction and the capacitive layer is decreasing in mass, the local reaction mass will be pulled the opposite way, but not as far as it was pushed in the expansion cycle of the device. Therefore there will be a net force, and an acceleration of the local reaction mass will result.

Seen by itself, the motion of the stack might seem to break some law of physics, after all, motion as a result of applied force usually requires that the force push against something to cause the motion. But the Mach principle says that the acceleration couples to the universal gravitational field which permeates all of space. This coupling provides the something that is being pushed against.

Georgia Polytechnic University

Atlanta, Georgia

USA

Jack was busy trying to pull his experiment together. He had let the material he needed get away from him by not moving quick enough. Now, he was scrambling to find a new source, a problem becoming more urgent in a world with collapsing supply chains and regional aggressions.

At three inches under six feet, with brown hair that always needed cutting, he was the perfect image of a physics student. His glasses also contributed, but he was just as skilled in other areas of his studies as the sciences.

As a graduate student, his project was highly constrained by the general funds budget of the department. That's why he had waited to order the materials he needed. He thought they would become cheaper as production ramped back up after the war but then, as he waited, the war had started again. Luckily, he was safe in the United States but New India was skirmishing again with Southern China over territory, the exact territory where the element Jack needed was being mined. There were other mining areas but their output was almost all taken, the result was that the price of rhenium had tripled.

Jack had come up with the idea of adding the heavy metal atom to the PZT matrix (which would then become RPZT) because he was hoping that it would increase the internal energy capacity of the stack, which was important to the Mach thruster's efficiency. The idea came from his early days as an engineering student when he was studying rocketry, where rhenium was used in rocket engine metallurgy because of its high melting point.

After some discussion with a chemist friend, he had decided that rhenium could do the job. He found a company that was willing to modify its PZT stack for Jack in return for the results of his research. He was all set, until he got the latest news.

In his small dorm room that night, Jack was talking with his dad, who was back home in the North Georgia mountains.

Yeah dad, I don't know if the department will come up with the additional funds or not, I put the request in, so now I just have to wait.

What will you do in the meantime? asked his father.

Well, the theory still needs some work. You remember my telling you about frame-dragging in general relativity?

"Something about acceleration of local objects