History Main / RamScoop

* ''RedDwarf'' has a full scoop on the front of the ship.

* ''Destiny'' in ''Series/StargateUniverse'' has this on board. However, the crew don't know about it as the ship heads for a star.

* PoulAnderson's ''TauZero''.

* ''Stars!'' have scooping engines -- when flying slowly, they produce surplus fuel, but have lesser optimal (and combat) warp speed than normal engines of the same TechLevel and when exceeding it eat even more than normal ones. There's also "[[http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/No_Ram_Scoop_Engines No Ram Scoop Engines]]" trait -- unless paired with Improved Fuel Efficiency, this means dependence on big starbases and fragile fuel plants. Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop, the lowest commonly available on TechTree, gradually kills transported colonists in the same fleet unless the race got rather high radiation optimum (not even maximum) value. This means not only ships with rad-scoop are limited to hauling minerals, but e.g. armed escorts would have to dance around a transport or colonizer as a separate fleet without merging. Ships with scoops also suffer 1/4 more damage per engine from SpaceMines.

* ''Stars!'' have 6 scooping engine types -- they produce surplus fuel if warp speed is set below the nominal. There's even "[[http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/No_Ram_Scoop_Engines No Ram Scoop Engines]]" trait. The lowest on TechTree is Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop, but unless the race got fairly high radiation tolerance, it kills transported colonists if anything equipped with it is placed in the same fleet and moves. This means not only ships with rad-scoop are limited to hauling minerals, but e.g. armed escorts have to dance around as a separate fleet without merging. Ships with scoops also suffer from SpaceMines more than normal.

* ''Stars!'' have 6 engine types scooping fuel -- more than they burn if warp speed is set below the nominal. There's even "[[http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/No_Ram_Scoop_Engines No Ram Scoop Engines]]" trait. The easiest is Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop, but unless the race got fairly high radiation tolerance, it kills transported colonists if anything equipped with it is placed in the same fleet and moves. This means not only ships with rad-scoop are limited to hauling minerals, but e.g. armed escorts have to dance around as a separate fleet without merging.

* AlastairReynolds' novel, ''ThePrefect'', shows a mothballed Ramscoop powered interstellar ship, designed to allow interstellar travel without the [[Transhuman Conjoiner]]'s conjoiner drive. The ramscoop's massive magnetic fields are used to horrific effect as a weapon.

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* ''Literature/ThePentagonWar'' used Bussard fusion "scramjets" for interstellar travel before the advent of hyper holes. A limited version of a Bussard scoop is used on the {{antimatter}}-powered starship ''Mercurand'', which gathers the interstellar medium merely for antimatter annihilation material.
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In RealLife, no nuclear fusion technology has yet "broken even" -- they all consume more energy to induce nuclear fusion than they get out of it. And, worse, the most promising fusion technologies don't use the regular garden-variety hydrogen lying around the universe, they use a much rarer isotope called [[superscript:2]]H or deuterium. As explained over [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet on The Other Wiki]] and [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/slowerlight.php#id--Bussard_Ramjet Atomic Rockets]], since Bussard first proposed the idea there's been some serious questions about whether it would actually work. Still, a lot of fiction features them as that news hasn't reached everyone yet.

* ''Destiny'' in ''StargateUniverse'' has this on board. However, the crew don't know about it as the ship heads for a star.

* In ''ThePentagonWar'', interstellar "scramjets" were used before the advent of [[PortalNetwork linked hyper holes]]. An experimental RAIR design that uses {{antimatter}} appears in chapter 8.

** In ''Protector'', the Pak use ramscoops to cross the 30,000 light-years from their homeworld to Earth. Eventually, after [[spoiler:Brennan]] becomes a Protector, he ends up in a ramscoop ''dogfight'' with ramscoop piloted by another Pak who's out to kill him.

* Poul Anderson's ''TauZero''.

* Appears a lot in LarryNiven novels, particularly ''Protector''.

For some for whom the news ''has'' reached them yet, two compromises to Bussard's design have cropped up:

* Ramscoops and Ramjets are some of the equipment available in the 4X game, ''Star Ruler''. As the ship moves, they slowly restore fuel, allowing you to have effectively infinite fuel, so long as you use a small rocket. Ramjets are basically a rocket and ramscoop combined, eliminating the need for fuel tanks.

* {{Vernor Vinge}}'s ''A Fire Upon the Deep'' mentions ramscoops, particularly for use in the Lower Beyond.

In RealLife, no nuclear fusion technology has yet "broken even" -- they all consume more energy to induce nuclear fusion than they get out of it. And, worse, the most promising fusion technologies don't use the regular garden-variety hydrogen lying around the universe, they use a much rarer isotope called [[superscript:2]]H or deuterium. As explained over [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet on The Other Wiki]] and [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aj.html#bussard Atomic Rockets]], since Bussard first proposed the idea there's been some serious questions about whether it would actually work. Still, a lot of fiction features them as that news hasn't reached everyone yet.

* Carl Sagan mentions the Bussard ramship design in ''{{Cosmos}}''. His take on it was somewhat optimistic.

# The Ram-Augmented Interstellar Rocket, or RAIR. This starship uses the Bussard scoop to collect the interstellar medium not as fuel, but as simple ''reaction mass'', i.e. as material to throw out the back of the spacecraft. The spacecraft still has to carry its own fuel supply, but in burning that fuel it can now acclerate a much larger amount of material than what it can carry on board. This increases the efficiency of its engines somewhat. The benefit will be very slight before you get up to a sizable fraction of the speed of light, though, and it may not be worth the added cost of a giant and temperamental scoop on the front of your starship.

In RealLife, no nuclear fusion technology has yet "broken even" -- they all consume more energy to induce nuclear fusion than they get out of it. And, worse, the most promising fusion technologies don't use the regular garden-variety hydrogen lying around the universe, they use a much rarer isotope called [[superscript:2]]H or deuterium. The best source of that is a gas giant or a star, so some spacecraft in ScienceFiction have the ability to scoop fuel from one of these two objects, even if they lack the ability to scoop up the (much thinner) interstellar medium. Sure, it's risky to dive through a Jupiter or a Sun in this manner, but it's cheaper than paying at the pump.

As explained over [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet on The Other Wiki]] and [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aj.html#bussard Atomic Rockets]], since Bussard first proposed the idea there's been some serious questions about whether it would actually work. Still, a lot of fiction features them as that news hasn't reached everyone yet.

But even with such monumental fuel efficiency, a fusion-powered rocket ship still has to carry all of its hydrogen fuel along with it. It can only go so fast before it runs out of gas. If you add bigger fuel tanks, you quickly run into a problem: You're now having to burn more fuel just to push your ''extra unburned fuel'' along. This is called the [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3c.html mass ratio problem]], and it adds up quickly. Even if you pack your space ship to the gills with hydrogen, so that 95% of its total mass is fusion fuel, ''and'' your fusion engines are 100% efficient, you'll still run your tanks dry by the time you reach a paltry 33% of the speed of light. And then you won't have any fuel left to ''slow down'' at the end of your trip.

* Appears a lot in LarryNiven novels.

* ''TroperWorks/ThePentagonWar'' used Bussard fusion "scramjets" for interstellar travel before the advent of hyper holes. A limited version of a Bussard scoop is used on the {{antimatter}}-powered starship ''Mercurand'', which gathers the interstellar medium merely for antimatter annihilation material.