Re: Engineering Newsletter

[Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>]

KellySt@aol.com writes:
 > Fusion is an extreamly usefull general purpose technology.  Anti-matter is
 > far less so, and far more dangerous on the scale we would need.  I wouldn't
 > expect a lot of anti-mater ships in 50 years.

Perhaps not, but the only fuel that you can use to reach high
relativistic speeds with a ship that carries its own fuel is
antimatter.  A fusion-powered ship carrying its own fuel can't
reach high relativistic speeds without fuel-to-payload ratios of
10^6 or higher (much higher).