What if we had one gram of antimatter?

[Crazy Eddie]

According to a handful of readily available and casually discovered internet sources, it would cost around $62 Trillion to create a gram of Antimatter; but the good news is that apparently, with enough effort, it could - with our technological knowledge - be done.

Earth assets according to another source are worth roughly $140 Trillion. Thus, in hypothesis, focus of less than 50% of global assets could pay for said antimatter.

For a moment, let us assume that we achieved world peace, poured 50% of the world's fiscal reserves into a massive new space program, created a gram of antimatter, and are now going to decide how to use it.

Howstuffworks.com suggests that one millionth of a gram could sufficiently fuel a year long Mars mission; let us assume that this is correct, and that we are planning to pour that entire energy arsenal into one massive ship-building project.

What would it look like? We're talking about enough power to fuel one million trips to Mars without refuelling; clearly more than enough to create a fully navigable ship capable of supporting a crew for an extended duration and travelling outside our solar system.

You're asking all the wrong questions, methinks. The political and technological implications of the stuff would be staggering.

Leaving out the politics, I suggest this: one gram of antimatter--say, a penny-sized chunk of the stuff in a magnetic bottle--would be the single most valuable object in the entire solar system. It would be like "the Galaxy" in that stupid Men In Black movie, only with the unfortunate tendency to level entire cities when jostled.

Using the whole gram on any one application would be kind of stupid, since that's more energy than any system could realistically harness. But a government that obtained it would have to develop a system to distribute nanograms of antimatter to different end users in extremely robust containers under extremely tight security, and even then, you're using the antimatter literally a few hundred atoms at a time for most energy applications. Indeed, even in a starship, it's likely that antimatter is consumed in trickles of particles, zapped into their necessary components in quantities no thicker than the electron beam from your TV's cathode ray tube. That's alot of particles and alot of energy, but not alot of MASS.

A more interesting question would be "What if SOMEBODY on Earth had a gram of antimatter and nobody knew for sure who or where?" THAT would be the premise of one hell of a sci fi novel.

 

[Meredith]

You can make anti-matter by rotating matter 180 degrees along the 5th dimensional axis....


Figure out how to do that cheaply and you have solved all of our energy problems..

 

[Bill Morris]

You can make anti-matter by rotating matter 180 degrees along the 5th dimensional axis....


Figure out how to do that cheaply and you have solved all of our energy problems..

Actually, if you imagine that every proton has a small particle that gives it its positive charge, in that case sending it two antiparticles of that might change the much larger particle (the proton) into an antiproton. One of the small antiparticles annihilates its counterpart, and the other replaces it. It's almost like changing an old punch-card phone bill into a customer credit by knowing the codes and punching some new holes to trick their computer into sending you money. Just blithering, here.

 

[Silvercrest]

I agree with Alpha Geek. Let's shake the bottle. Him first, since it was his idea.

"Whatcha, I say, whatcha got there, boy? Looks like sody-pop! Watch me make it fizz!"

 

[Myasishchev]

But a gram of antimatter isn't worth a million trips to Mars.http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/antimatter_spaceship.html

If I recall, a gram of matter is worth about one Nagaski. Perhaps less, with the charged pions decaying through weak interaction into muons which in turn decay into semi-useful electrons and absolutely useless neutrinos instead of useful gamma photons.

Antimatter bomb: an expensive, crappy bomb. Use thermonukes and save.

 

[Lindley]

Such a process is at worst impossible, and at best the equivalent of waving one's hand and turning water in to wine.

We'll just call it Jesus Drive.

You heard it here first.

 

[Myasishchev]

A more interesting question would be "What if SOMEBODY on Earth had a gram of antimatter and nobody knew for sure who or where?" THAT would be the premise of one hell of a sci fi novel.

Isn't that the premise of Angels and Demons?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

You can make anti-matter by rotating matter 180 degrees along the 5th dimensional axis....


Figure out how to do that cheaply and you have solved all of our energy problems..

Actually, if you imagine that every proton has a small particle that gives it its positive charge, in that case sending it two antiparticles of that might change the much larger particle (the proton) into an antiproton...

Except that, according to the standard model, protons are composed of 2 up quarks, each with charge +2/3, and 1 down quark with charge -1/3. You'd need to convert each of these three particles to its antiparticle (that is, two antiup quarks and an antidown quark).

 

[nx1701g]

Here we go:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ_sBTSfXQ4[/yt]

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I don't think one gram of AM would quite have that effect. 1 kg of AM would have an annihilation yield about 40 megatons with about 50% of the energy lost as neutrinos. Current production rate of AM is about 10^-8 grams/year. Basically, 1 gram gets you a very expensive A bomb.

 

[USS KG5]

For a moment, let us assume that we achieved world peace, poured 50% of the world's fiscal reserves into a massive new space program, created a gram of antimatter, and are now going to decide how to use it.

I'd probably spend a few thousand dollars first having whoever it was who spent 62 of my 70 trillion dollar budget on one gram of a POSSIBLE fuel shot so he could not do anything like that ever again, then I would try and find some more money as 8 trillion dollars might pay for a short Mars program, or I might well run out of cash.

If you are essentially saying "You have an unlimited budget - what would you do in space?" I'd invest a percentage of my budget in researching new propulsion while trying to provide real benefits for the world with existing technology in order to maintain and justify my budget with the majority of it.

Capitalism has its weaknesses but it is REALLY good at telling us when something is worth doing - create a business case for space travel and the budget will follow.