[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: starship-design: Stellar drive?



[description of reactionless drive deleted]

Much as I would like to see this idea work (I wrote a rather silly dissertation on the idea when I was MUCH younger), I must throw a little cold water on it.

You see, it is really irrelevant whether or not it will work, or violate any laws of physics. In the early days of Apollo, NASA experimented with magnetic fields extensively hoping to come up with a "meteorite screen". They did have some small successes but there was this one small, tiny flaw...

Magnetic fields due indeed have frequency just like other forms of EM radiation. Fields such as we are discussing here of sufficient power to have any effect were invariably fatal to organic life forms contained or caught within them, and since we can't shield ourselves from the field itself...

Now that I have said that, if anyone finds a method of shielding a magnetic field, it might be usable. Even better, shielding is but the first step to FOCUSING which will boost the efficiency and power output enormously.

L. Parker