Tell me more ×
Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 15 down vote favorite
1

This is purely theoretical. Ignoring the demand for power, how would Iron Man's suit be constructed? What would be the type of flight he uses, or type of repulsors? An idea I had was that he uses a thermal thruster or chemical thruster for the bootjets. The repulsors use VASIMR or some basic ion thruster as "flight stabilizers". When he uses them offensively, he has a Van de Graaf generator or Tesla coil making electricity, which discharges through the path of ionized gas that also comes out of his gauntlets. Or he could use an ultrasonic transducer with focused intensity, particle displacement, and pressure.

Any ideas? I know the suit is just in a movie, but I'm curious.

share|improve this question
8  
@exosuit - I think a more important question would be 'how does tony avoid turning into crimson jelly and bone fragments when undergoing the vicious, nigh instantaneous accelerations and decelerations the films are so fond of?' It's clear from this alone that the producers probably simply didn't care, and as such going through the hoops trying to justify scientifically what are chiefly 'rule of cool' design decisions is bound to become an exercise in frustration. – Richard Terrett Jun 23 '11 at 4:20
2  
@exosuit - On a more useful note, VASIMR/ion thrusters produce very low thrust at very high efficiency and as such are more suited to long-haul spaceflight where 'slow and steady wins the race'. Chemical rockets are a much better solution for rapid changes in velocity. I'm not even sure conventional VASIMR/ion engines would work in a dense atmosphere. – Richard Terrett Jun 23 '11 at 4:27
@Richard: Given that there was a powerful enough source, VASMIR could work, and assuming that the movie is correct about the high energy source, it's at least plausible. – PearsonArtPhoto♦ Jun 23 '11 at 14:09
5  
The Marvel writers have always been a bit sketchy as to actual physics...As I recall from the very first issues of Iron Man, the power source was the then-new "transistors"... – M. Werner Jun 23 '11 at 14:54
1  
Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is. – Shwetabh Shekhar Nov 27 '12 at 9:23

migrated from physics.stackexchange.com Jun 23 '11 at 13:07

1 Answer

up vote 10 down vote

This is certainly an example of Rule of Cool and Comic Book Physics.

Marvel's wiki has a nice listing of all the different sets of Iron Man Armor

In the movie, all power was provided by the ARC generator in Tony's chest, which seemed to function as some form of fusion (or possibly fission) reactor. There is no explanation given of how Tony could survive rapid decelerations (he's explicitly shown several times not to be wearing any sort of undersuit or jumpsuit like most pilots wear).

In the comics, the power source has fluctuated frequently. Recently he's been said to be using zero-point energy.

Everything else was repulsors and uni-beams, which are 'SCIENCE!' of the highest sort.

share|improve this answer
1  
The ARC reactor is definitely fusion. The industrial size one is obviously a tokamak-type fusion reactor, and the schematics at the start of Iron Man 2 reinforce this. Him making a tiny one that fits in his chest is basically magic. – Keen♦ Jun 25 '11 at 5:39
Also, in the comics, he has forcefields that allows the suit to be thinner. In the movie he has pretty thin armor with no mention of forcefield reinforcement, but it's treated as though it's bulletproof. – Keen♦ Jun 25 '11 at 5:41
Note that the recent versions of the suit (and the one used for the second movie) follow from the Extremis plotline in the comics, during which Tony redesigns his internal organs to cope with the suit better. – Tynam Apr 23 '12 at 19:31
@Keen In one of the movies he says that it's made of gold, and I think an aluminum alloy. If we are talking about realism, it's unlikely that either of these metals will stand a chance against any sort of firepower at thicknesses of less than 1". However, if he did have gold in the suit, I'm sure he'd have no problem using steel in some places (since gold is much heavier) -- which would be more effective against bullets at a slimmer width – Denim Vallorosi Jun 20 '12 at 3:31
1  
@DenimVallorosi: Sorry, but you're wrong. The quote (from Iron Man 1) is "Use the gold-titanium alloy from the seraphim tactical satellite." In other words, it's an allow of titanium (yes, with gold) that was used in military grade satellites. I'd guess that the allow is designed to resist meteor strikes as well as deal with the stresses of launch and the temperature irregularities inherent in LEO. – Jeff Jun 20 '12 at 13:58
show 2 more comments

protected by Keen♦ Nov 29 '12 at 19:45

This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.