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Retro sailing difficulties
Kevin C. Houston writes:
> The plasma mirror avoids these difficulties. Since the mirror is
> constantly being renewed at the ship's speed, the primary reflection gets
> more and more efficient as the ship slows down.
>
> Also, this allows us to use the plasma mirror as reaction mass at the
> same time we're using it for retro reflection. plasma exhaust may not be
> the most efficient in the universe, but it's the best I can find if you
> want to get near C.
I don't think you could think of this as reaction mass as much as
simply throwing out new mirrors continually so you have a
backwards-reflecting mirror that stays near the speed of the
ship. There is also advantage to decelerating a ship that is
gradually decreasing in mass.
You could just as easily talk about hucking out new mirrors
periodically, rather than trying to make a plasma that has these
magical reflective properties.