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Re: Laser Aperture Size

At 1:46 PM 3/15/96, David Levine wrote:
>Kelly Starks x7066 MS 10-39 wrote:
>
>> At 11:35 AM 3/15/96, Kevin C Houston wrote:
>
>> >it would generate ~1 G of Decell as long as you stayed above ~.93 of C.
>> >then it drops off rapidly until it accounts for less than .1Garound .88
>> >of C.  Please Note that this is for a solid sail, and not for a mesh.  a
>
>> Why didn't you follow up on, or talk more about this?  Whats the
>>dragdrop off?
>
>It sounds like the decelleration is miniscule
>at fairly high speeds (0.5c) where we'd still
>need a bunch more decelleration.

Humm I missed the .1 G at around .88 part.  Still if you could rig out a
LARGE, light, charged, microwave transparent  drag chute or mag scoop.  It
could get a good fraction of a G of drag.  Given time dialation would cut
the crews apparent trip time way down.  They could afford to spend a couple
years deceling down to a low C fraction that we could brake from by rocket.
It beats all this nonsence about reflector sails!


>--
>David Levine
>Application Engineer
>InterWorld Technology Ventures, Inc.
>http://www.interworld.com/staff/david/
>david@interworld.com

Much more professional signature.  ;)

Kelly


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Kelly Starks                       Internet: kgstar@most.fw.hac.com
Sr. Systems Engineer
Magnavox Electronic Systems Company
(Magnavox URL: http://www.fw.hac.com/external.html)

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