Re: New idea Laser launcher/scoop systems

[T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

>>No, what matters most is the pressure that is build up inside the engine.
>>The higher the pressure, the higher the exhaust velocity.
>>One can regulate that velocity by enlarging or reduce the ourlet.
>
>I'm not sure that is possible with particals going a fraction of the speed
>of light.  Remember the G loads my mag launcher would have needed to get to
>fuel up to .3 of light.  I think the nessisary voltage presure might be
>undoable.  Certainly your not talking about a normal rocket chanber
>situation.

Maybe you have a point there, but since we haven't any clue let me do some
brainstorming:

The pressure at one side is high anyway, namely the backside of the ship.
Adding some extra engine walls may increase the pressure but also makes the
efficiency better, since the first extra walls will be at the side so that
the particle stream is more to the aft.

I assume that all the particles will be ionized so that we can make the
walls of magnetic fields. If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what would,
since the temperature of the particles would be very high (1E6 Kelvin?).

Another way to decrease the pressure is simply to add less power (which is
the smartest way, I think). So then the amount of particles goes down and so
does the pressure.

Timothy