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Re: Comparison of Sail vs. RAM (Was Laser Aperture Size)
- To: "L. Parker" <lparker@gnt.net>
- Subject: Re: Comparison of Sail vs. RAM (Was Laser Aperture Size)
- From: kgstar@most.fw.hac.com (Kelly Starks x7066 MS 10-39)
- Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 08:03:08 -0500
- Cc: kgstar@most.fw.hac.com (Kelly Starks x7066 MS 10-39), David <David@InterWorld.com>, hous0042 <hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu>, KellySt <KellySt@aol.com>, rddesign <rddesign@wolfenet.com>, Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>, "T.L.G.vanderLinden" <T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl>, bmansur@oc.edu, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl, jim@bogie2.bio.purdue.edu, DotarSojat@aol.com
At 9:05 PM 3/27/96, L. Parker wrote:
>At 08:40 AM 3/22/96 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>My Explorer class with its externalkly feed fussion rockets could certainly
>>get itself up to .3 c and probably back down again, assuming less rediculas
>>amounts of power, but a hell of a lot of fusion isotopes.
>
>Most of the research I've seen support .3c from a ramship type of vehicle.
>If you can make the extra fuel idea work, then you could probably get even
>higher.
Most of the stuff we found suggests ram ships are impractical to impossible
to make work. (Bummed us out too.)
>>Well It doesn't have to be that complicated! Gravity assist is obviously
>>of no use unless you find a black hole near by (To little power for our
>>needs.) but you could say use a sail to boost the ship up to speed (.3c)
>>here. Pull in the sail and store it for the cruse, then use fusion rockets
>>to decel into the target system. To get back, refuel and boost out of the
>>system using the rockets, and deploy the sail for deceleration into Sol.
>
>Actually the gravity assist manuever combined with sails works BETTER in
>deep gravity wells of large STARS. Sails don't help much around black holes!
Yeah, but the gravity assist and solar sail delta-V potential is too
trivial to worry about.
>>I do know what you mean about discouraging thou. It seems like were not
>>going to be able to realisticly build a usable starship without some new
>>tricks from physisits. The only adaquate power source now is anti-mater,
>>but thats not really usable or practical. Perhaps a mater conversion
>>system? So physisits are talking about possibility of rotating the quantum
>>particals to convert a partical of mattar to anti-mater. If this could be
>>done on demand the ships could have the power to weight ratio's of
>>anti-matter without the danger of bulk anti-matter storage, or the current
>>cost of antimatter production.
>
>Assuming it doesn't require more power to rotate the particle than the
>energy it produces...
More power than a mater anti mat reaction? Humm.
>Funny you should new tricks and quantums in the same breath though. Did you
>know that quantum energy appears spontaneously in space? Hmmmm....
Zero point energy? Yeah, interesting and potentially huge.
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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