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Re: MARS
On Thu, 29 Feb 1996, Timothy van der Linden wrote:
> >> 2. I'm concerned about the size and weight of the maser sail. Actually I'm
> >> concerned about anything that has a diameter of a sizable moon. Do you have
> >> any good idea as to how much the sail will weigh? After all, if it gets
> >> much above say 100,000 tons (E5 tons), it will probably be too heavy to
> >> carry enough RM to stop.
> >
> >The sail can have a large area to weight ratio, because it can have large
> >(~2cm) holes in it. Like chicken wire, only not as thick. Because the
> >microwaves have such a large wavelength, they won't even "see" the holes.
>
> Eh, Kevin why do you think that micro waves are called MICRO waves? Assuming
> you see what I mean, I think that you agree that such big holes are not allowed.
Ah, Tim, i was asusuming that a good frequency for the maser would be
21cm. as the ship approached earth on it's return flight, it would have
a gamma of about seven, so the wavelength would be reduced by seven times
to about 3 cm. All other portions of the trip would have longer wave-
lengths, or at least, no significant change. I always assumed that they
were called _micro_ waves, because compared to radio waves (which can be
in the 1 meter range), 21 cm seems very small indeed.
Microwaves have longer frequencies than IR, and i know that IR is about
1 cm or shorter.
Kevin
- References:
- Re: MARS
- From: T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)