Re: Re: Summary

[Brian Mansur <bmansur@oc.edu>]

 ----------
From: KellySt
To: T.L.G.vanderLinden; stevev; jim; zkulpa; hous0042; rddesign; David; 
bmansur
Subject: Re: Re: Summary
Date: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 10:56PM


> To Kelly,
>
> >I wasn't assuming we would be using a propulsion beam, much less build 
one
in
> >the target systems.  You've pretty wel convinced me that, that isn't
> >practical.
>
> Oh yes, it was Kevin who wants to use it. But you do use it in the next
> part, or is that only for a relative short acceleration period?

>Next part?  I list all of them in the summary, but don't assume any of them
>will be used.  My designs only use fusion drives and fuel launchers.

Interjecting an idea here: isn't our ion rocket basically a superpowerful 
ion accelerator already?  If so, why don't we leave it at Tau Ceti and have 
it fire a relativistic particle beam at a magnetic sail attached to our 
ship.  The way we've been talking, the ion rocket should be powerful enough 
to do the job.  We just need to park it on a heavy but slow moving Kupier 
object.  Earth can slow us using the same system.

For some reason, I don't think its that easy ;(

On the other hand, powering shouldn't be such a problem if we bring or build 
a maser array and let Earth beam power.  ( did I just repeat something from 
a weeks old response to this letter?).  Of course, if we can get that to 
happen, why not just use the maser array to directly power the accelerator 
as a rocket as Kevin wanted to do in the first place?  On the other hand 
again, using this system, we don't have to worry about the engineering 
aspects of buiding a microwave antenna that can withstand the radiation/dust 
wear and tear of relativistic flight not to mention the g-force stresses.  A 
mag-sail should be easier since it is just a bundle of superconductive wires 
that we could recycle and reweave into a sail.

I'm going to shut up for a while now.

Brian