Re: My Two Bits Ain't Worth 1E-15 (Take 2)

[Brian Mansur <bmansur@oc.edu>]

>From Brian

>Brian Says
>>>By the way, Kevin, I believe, was worried about the a redirecting mirror
>>>gaining too much speed related to the Asimov during the redirecting of 
the
>
>>>maser beam.  That problem can be handled by putting some sort of weight
>>>on the mirror.
>
>Tim Says
>>Yes, but then that weight has to be accelerated too during the starting
>>phase. So while gaining something on the one end, one looses something on
>>the other end.
>
Brian Says
>Just accelerate at a slower rate.

>Tims Says
>That means a longer trip and if we want the same end-velocity, the energy
>has to be beamed over a longer path.
>And we are not talking about a little bit more weight, assuming fusion fuel
>we should at least count with a ship that is 5 times heavier (assuming
>end-velocity of less than 0.3c).

See Phase 3 of my paper on the second Mars Hybrid (I still have things to 
transmit about it but that will have to wait till after I've done some 
homework these next few days).  Basically it says that you launch a maser 
reflector ahead of the Asimov to redirect the maser beam for deceleration. 
 I seem to recall you making a mension of this idea sometime before I joined 
the discussion group.  How did that go?

Anyway, the reflector is seriously weighted down and is accelerated to only 
..3c.  If it takes nine years for this to happen at say .036g as you 
calculated a while back, who cares?  The crew won't because they will launch 
later on the faster moving Asimov ten to twenty years after the reflector. 
 Oh, and I am assuming that our maser array is totally dedicated to the 
mission and that the reflector is unmanned and guided by the same types of 
waveguides that the masers are.