Is it possible to build a Bussard ramjet?
10
1kṀ171
2200
19%
chance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet

Must be theoretically capable of operating indefinitely with no other fuel source required. (e.g. an onboard nuclear reactor or beamed energy.) Must be capable of operating with the existing interstellar medium, no prelaunched fuel required.

Resolves once we're technologically advanced enough to know the answer with high confidence.

Space
Physics Forecasting
Get
Ṁ1,000
to start trading!

People are also trading

Sort by:

A 2021 study found that, while feasible in principle, the practical construction of a useful Bussard ramjet would be beyond even a civilization of Kardashev type II.

Robert Zubrin and Dana Andrews analyzed one hypothetical version of the Bussard ramjet design in 1988. They determined that their version of the ramjet would be unable to accelerate into the solar wind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet#Feasibility

Wondering if the question is missing specification: "that can perform some useful task".

This is now a "Kardashev type II before 2199" market.

What if it requires some molecular structure which is provably stable, but also provably impossible to fabricate?

@BoltonBailey Then it doesn't sound like it would be possible to build one, so it resolves NO.

I'm fairly sure there was analysis that it gets more drag than produced power

@LivInTheLookingGlass Wouldn't that be dependent on the efficiency of the fusion thruster?

People are also trading

© Manifold Markets, Inc.•Terms•Privacy