Antimatter Drive

By: Tsegazeab Beteselassie






Antimatter Drive: This is what an antimatter drive might look like.
Source:sciencegravity.blogspot.com-
 

     When you were a little kid (like me), have you ever wanted to travel to the stars? I bet you did. Well, right now, you can't go to the stars.
 Not for long.
Really, the only reasons why were not at Alpha Centauri (nearest star besides the sun) right now is because:

•  The cost to even go to the moon was more than a billion dollars.
• It is really really really really far.
• We don't have the technology to get there within the span of a human lifetime.

    That's it. Only three problems to get to anywhere in the universe. Of course, they are much bigger than they appear. But still, only three problems. Scientists have been trying to find ways to propel spacecraft through space, and they have devised many ways to solve this problem. I am here now to talk about one of these solutions. It is a very smart solution, and the name of it is called the antimatter drive.

    Wait, hold on a sec. What is antimatter? Well, I could tell you, or you can click here, here, or here to find out.



Antimatter: This picture represents the differences
 between matter and antimatter.
Link:www.crystalinks.com

    Oh, you stayed? Great! Okay, so let me tell you what antimatter is. So basically, antimatter is just the opposite of matter. Actually, it's more complicated than that, but the three things you really need to know is that:

• Antimatter has the opposite charge of matter. (Ex: electrons have a negative charge, antimatter electrons (positrons) have a positive charge. Positron, positive.)
• Antimatter is more rare than matter (Currently, not any are found in nature)
• If matter touches antimatter, it blows up. (if you ever meet an alien made of antimatter, run.)

Wasn't that a lot simpler than reading Wikipedia?

    So now that you know what antimatter is, we can talk about using antimatter to fuel spacecraft. That is what this post is really about (also, the title is a bit obvious). So here's what I think we should do. NOTE: I AM NOT CLAIMING THAT THIS IDEA WAS MINE. I AM ONLY DESCRIBING IT. Anyways, this is the standard model for an antimatter drive.

    So first, you get a tritium/deuterium pellet. This is actually standard for fusion (or fission, I think). The reason is that it is an optimum combination, and just plain hydrogen is not is because tritium/deuterium packs the most punch. Anyways, after you find that pellet, you simply get a couple grams of antimatter (very powerful stuff, antimatter), and simply funnel it down a couple particles at a time, and since one particle of antimatter can't blow up the entire pellet, you got yourselves a trip to the stars. Of course, there are a couple safety issues.

    First and foremost, is the exploding problem. Something could break (actually, a lot of things could break) if at the launch site, the end of the rocket explodes (even though its on purpose). It might break the big tower thingy in such a way that it falls on the antimatter rocket, making a really big explosion. You ever seen a rocket explosion? Pretty big fireball. Now imagine what an antimatter explosion would look like. I won't even describe it. However, several safety precautions can be taken. First, you can make the first couple miles with gasoline (or whatever rockets use for fuel). Then, you can just turn on the antimatter drive. Or, you can just use the antimatter drive to get to far places, instead of everywhere. However, my favorite is to channel the explosion to the ground via some mechanism, and avoid all that messy business of cleaning up after  the antimatter drive.

   So if you ever wanted to get to the stars, this is one of the best candidates for traveling beyond our solar system.


* Just in case.