Re: Orbit B

[T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

To Lee,

>I know you can make a sail from vacuum deposited metal film only 100 atoms
>thick. I also know that this is suitable only for low fractional c flight
>regimes where erosion is not a serious problem and drag coefficients don't
>come into play. In order to realize a practical amount of thrust from a sail
>it must be lighter than MYLAR by a factor of at least ten....

The problem is how do you attach a 1000 ton starship to it.

>Have you considered the effect of erosion on your(any) sail at substantial
>fractions of c?

Since I'm not sure whom you are asking these questions, I will answer them
for the design I've in mind.
Since I'm thinking of a quite solid sail build of aluminium or something
like that, I'm not worried much about corrosion, even small debris will just
make some holes in it without doing much more damage.

>What is the drag coefficent of such a sail in the ICM? 

Is ICM the same as ISM? The drag will be neglectable, this is something we
assumed for a long time.

>At
>what speed does the acceleration balance drag? Is this before or after the
>sail is shredded?

Only at very high c, probably far beyond 0.99c. I don't see any reason why
the sail would brake if the pressure is equally divided.

Timothy