RE: Old RAIR drive system

[Kevin C Houston <hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu>]

On Wed, 6 Mar 1996, Kelly Starks x7066 MS 10-39 wrote:

> 
> Unfortunatly, the best info we have is that there isn't enough reaction
> mass in space to make this desirable.  So I never worked it out to that
> level.  I'ld drop it, but it is an interesting class of drive systems.
> 

That was the idea behind my hybrid design (I'm way behind in my e-mail  ;)
that the decellerator is a mobile fuel launcher.  it isn't really 
required to aim accurately, all you have to do is raise the local density 
of space.  since the decellerator is accelerating all the time, momentum 
is conserved
> light.  Say 50-100 times the loaded ships mass.
> 
> Frankly I don't know if the sun makes puts out enough power to run the
> masers! ;)

We already went over this, covering the face of mercury with solar 
collectors would provide more than 1E18 Watts.

Kevin