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Engineering newsletter
ReplyTo : Kevin
ReplyFrom : Timothy
Subject : Dragonfly?
>I think this is what Kelly was trying to get at with his plasma mirror,
>but this puts the mirror inside the ship. I realize that I'm talking
>about some very very complicated twists and turns, but just answer the
>following question. is this system physically possible? does it
>preserve momenergy, and does the ship slow down. we can worry about the
>merely difficult engineering tasks later.
Yes, it looks much like it, and I have the same comment, why not use a
simple massive mirror that works according to the dragon-fly principle.
>here's how I see it breaking down,
>
>1 photons reflecting off RM:
>
>Momenergy (very dangerous of me to toss a word around that I don't fully
>understand.) conserved by acceleration of RM. Ship slows down a little or
>not at all (photons momentum equals RM momentum and ship stays the
>same??? but ship now has less mass <very confusing>)
>
>2 reflected photons absorbed:
>Momenergy conserved by ship slowing down.
>
>3 electricity used to further accelerate RM. ship slows down even more.
It would be better not to absorb the photons, but reflect them right away.
Steve showed that a long time ago.