Colo Claw Fish Protector Interstellar

I am very protective of a 40m long sexy Star Wars eel called a Colo Claw Fish to the point of even envisioning Colo Claw Fish-carrying spacecraft.  The inventory of possible designs for Colo Claw Fish protector ships to use from this post are all realistic starship designs. Check out Atomic Rockets for more information on suggestions for realistic starship designs.  Although I am immune to nay sayers on the topic of interstellar travel, I will refuse to ignore the laws of physics or dignify any asinine comments promoting outright handwavium wishful thinking.  Colo Claw Fish might be real and inhabiting Earth-like planets and/or moons in nearby star systems such as Alpha Centauri 4.37 light-years away and Tau Ceti 11.9 light-years away since they happen to be a realistic alien design.  Colo Claw Fish have a slow digestive system and can even hibernate, and it could  be possible to have such an eel be put into suspended animation and safely into cryogenic freeze.  Ice crystals do destry cells so real animals that do cryogenics for hibernation such as the wetta have a special fluid to protect cells form being destroyed.

Colo Claw Fish

Project Orion II is not large enough nor efficient enough to transport Colo Claw Fish in deep space; believe me, you would definitely need higher starships to ply deep space with any Colo Claw Fish onboard.  This blog has a list of realistic possibilities.

The first option that I will cover for use as a Colo Claw Fish Carrier is the Antimatter Beamcore Rocket which uses a more potent source of fuel than fusion known as antimatter.  When matter and antimatter collide, they release pure energy and is totally efficient.  Antimatter rockets can reach speeds of half the speed of light or more, making it a candidate for an interstellar transport for Colo Claw Fish.  The huge drawback to antimatter rockets is the massive gamma radiation associated with matter-antimatter reactions and the astronomical expensiveness of creating usable amounts of antimatter with what we have today.  There are also other options to choose from.


Antimatter Beamcore Rocket

Another option and one of my favorite candidates for a starship to transport Colo Claw Fish is the Bussard Ramjet named for the physicist who designed it in 1960, Dr. Robert W Bussard.  The Bussard Ramjet is also known as a fusion ramjet or an interstellar ramjet and would harness the exact same type of proton-proton chain that powers main sequence stars like the Sun for propulsion.  A Bussard Ramjet would have a massive frontal ram scoop with field wires to collect hydrogen atoms that float in interstellar space.  The Bussard Ramjet  would  probably need  to carry sufficient enough on board propellant to accelerate it to two percent of the speed of light before being able to collect enough interstellar hydrogen to keep its engine  humming.  Drawbacks to the Bussard Ramjet  include the difficulty of harnessing proton-proton fusion, not even Dr Bussard knew how to build it, and a need for huge advancements in physics and engineering  knowledge.  The Bussard Ramjet will continue to receive further study even after Robert Bussard's death in 2007.  SO far, the Bussard Ramjet is the best option for relativistic space travel and being able to ply interstellar space with Colo Claw Fish on board.


Bussard Ramjet: Most Likely Colo Claw Fish Carrier

Now I will talk about handwavium.  Handwavium is anything that flat out violates physics.  Faster than light (FTL) in its various forms if an epitome of handwavium.  Any spacecraft design that ignores thermodynamics such as stealth in space is also handwavium.  Check out Atomic Rockets' Preliminary Notes, Common Misconceptions and Respecting Science web pages for more information.  Even though I am immune to nay sayers who say that we will never reach the stars and am a firm champion of  future interstellar travel, I solemnly refuse to ignore the laws of physics or dignify any pro-handwavium wishful thinking.

Handwavium is anything that flat out violates the laws of physics



Space is NOT an ocean

Space is NOT an ocean and is instead three dimensional.  Spacecraft can move in any direction or angle that they want to indefinitely.  There is noting wrong with two Colo Claw Fish Carriers being "upside down" with respect to one another since the is no specific "up" or "down" in space.

Starships are  NOT boats

Starships will not have their decks laid out like that of ocean-going vessels, this rampant misconception is an outgrowth of the aforementioned "space is an ocean" fallacy.  A starship would have the internal arrangement like that of a skyscraper, and this is how a Colo Claw Fish Carrier would be arranged.  The only direction of motion that a Colo Claw  Fish Carrier will have with respect to itself  is "up" with the exhaust always pointing "down".  When a Colo Claw Fish Carrier decelerates, it will fly backwards with its exhaust shooting in the direction the ship is moving, just like any other realistic spacecraft including Project Orion II.

There is NO stealth in space

The reason that  there is no stealth in space is due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, you will find that any arguments that one can muster in favor of space stealth have been brought up and shot down many times before.  Your heat signature would be a stealth destroying beacon, even the exhaust from the space shuttles thrusters can be detected from Pluto.


Sorry Sulaco, there ain't no stealth in space

FTL is an epitome of handwavium due to Albert Einstein's theory of Special Relativity which was first published in 1905 when Einstein was working as a young Swiss patten clerk.  Henrich Antoon Lorentz's equations known as the Lorentz Transformations like Special Relativity explain exactly why it is impossible to accelerate an object to or beyond the speed of light.  First of all, as you accelerate closer and closer to light speed, your mass increases, secondly your length decreases, and thirdly time slows down as you approach the cosmic speed limit.


Albert Einsten and his E=mc2: Special Relativity

Although FTL is handwavium, there is an alternative which is one theoretical possibility of taking a shortcut,  it is the warp drive that was used as a key plot device in Star Trek.  Warp Theory has been worked out by theoretical physicists such as Miguel Alcubierre.  Negative Energy and Dark Energy do exist and are real.  We are many centuries from having  a warp drive because it would take a quantum leap in our understanding of dark energy as well as in our physics and engineering knowledge.  Warp drive would require negative energy equal to Jupiter.  There are also risks attached to warp drive, a possibility of turning the ship into plasma and creating causality headaches is one of them.  Another risk that I have taken into serious consideration is that the warp bubble must be stable or else it would collapses, crushing the ship, killing the occupants, and maybe creating an artificial black hole.  I would only want to send Colo Claw Fish in a warp-powered starship if the warp drive is perfected and the warp bubble is stabilized.  If the USS Enterprise were real, it would probably look like the Warpship image below.  The thing that distinguishes warp drive form FTL is that your destination comes to you.  Warp drive would work in principle by expanding space behind you and contracting space in front of you, having space push and pull you along.


Warpship: A model for a realistic Starship Enterprise

Even Warp Drive will have its limitations to reasonable travel times within one galaxy, so it alone is not ideal for transporting Colo Claw Fish from Naboo in a galaxy far far away to a nearby star system in our own galaxy.  However, warp drive is one of those things that could open the door to an even far more spectacular possibility, wormholes.  There are tiny wormholes all around us and this has been worked out by physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Kip Throne.  But the catch is expanding those wormholes to being wide enough for people, Colo Claw Fish, and even starships to pass through and this would take enormous amounts of energy such as dark energy.  The danger is the risk that the wormhole would close while you pass through it, so it must be perfected before I am willing to send anyone through it.  The wormhole is ideal for getting Colo Claw Fish from Naboo in a distant galaxy to a star system that is next door to us in our own galaxy.


Wormhole

This post was an excellent attempt to put realism in an extreme hypothetical regarding space travel.  I was willing to envision starships that can carry Colo Claw Fish while plying the distances in interstellar space, but I was unwilling to ignore the laws of physics.