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Re: Insult to Injury



At 2:50 AM 5/7/96, Kevin C Houston wrote:
>First, a possible solution to Kelly's dilemma:
>
>Why not launch a fuel tank ahead of the explorer.  This would be an automated
>drone that would carry the decell fuel.  This could be launched using an
>ion beam/mag sail combination.  Since there would be no crew to worry
>about, acceleration could be several G's without difficulty.
>assuming a .3C cruise speed, the drone gets pushed to .29C, and rendevous
>takes place at the halfway point. The tanker is launched only a few
>months ahead of the explorer, so the ship should be able to "see" their
>tanker at all times.  since we are adding an ion cannon (instead of a
>fuel launcher or a maser array) the explorer could use that system to get
>up to some speed, further saving on accel fuel.

With my fuel launcher idea I was accelerating the ship without using any
onboard fuel.  I need the 2,500,00 spec impuse so the ship could carry
enough braking fuel to stop from .3c.

>Also, maybe some form of charged-wire magnetic brake would help here, I
>know we dismissed these for near light-speed ships, but perhaps at .3C
>the explorer could benefit from it.

Some kind of drag chut would be nice, if their was anything to drag against.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

>Kevin
>(who knows what it feels like to be slapped in the face by the cold hand
>of reality)

Yeah, we've all managed to chew up and spit out most all the ideas we've
come up with, and yes  I rtemember you realizing that the MARS drag motor
could overcome the microwave thrust from the rectenna.

>PS Don't give up so easily Kelly, There may yet be a way around your
>problem.

I suppose on the bright side were not doing much worse than others.  Maklov
(sp) who wrote the starflight handbook was in a artical in Final Frounteir
magazine where he figured we launch thousand year solar sail ships to the
local starsystem in the next century.  (Only if we all go retarded!)

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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