Principal Investigator: Kelvin F. Long
The concept of the Black Hole Interstellar Ramjet (BAIR) is to utilise Hawking evaporation of colliding TeV protons from the interstellar medium, to produce charged particles for thrust generation. This is seen as a potential solution to the interstellar ramjet which proposes mining hydrogen from the interstellar medium, but there are several problems with achieving that. The black hole evaporator engine relies on the assumption of string theory that there are extra dimensions of space, and so the Schwarzschild radius for gravitational collapse will be altered under these conditions.
The project was undertaken as an International Space University MSc thesis topic with the student Andrew Alexander. A comprehensive analysis of the problem has been written up but has not yet bee published in a peer-reviewed journal.
References
K. F. Long, "The Black Hole Evaporator Engine: A Theoretical Propulsion Scheme Using TeV Scale Quantum Gravity", unpublished, 2013.
A.Alexander, "Project BAIR: The Black Hole Augmented Interstellar Rocket", ISU MSc Thesis project 2014/2015.
A.Alexander, K. F. Long, C. Welch, "A Preliminary Analysis of the Black Hole Augmented Interstellar Ramjet", paper under submission, 2017.