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Re: starship-design: the beamed power problem, again



Kelly replied to Steve:
>At 10:52 AM 9/4/96, Steve VanDevender wrote:
>>Rex (DotarSojat@aol.com) and I have been having a private discussion on
>>my assertion that if you are beaming power to a starship to give it a
>>fixed ship-frame acceleration, you have only a finite amount of time
>>during which you can send power to the ship, no matter how long the
>>ship's trip time is.  For example, if you are beaming power to
>>accelerate a ship at 1 g, you have just short of a year after its
>>departure to beam power to it, no matter how far away you are sending
>>it, and you must beam increasing amounts of power towards the end of
>>that time to sustain the 1 g ship-frame acceleration.
>
>I beleave the english translation of the following; is that after about a
>year of 1G acceleration, the ships moving at near light speed.  Since the
>microwaves are moving at exactly lightspeed.  At some point the beam can't
>really catch up with the ship in time to be usefull.

No, this has nothing to do with what Steve meant.

The light is still closing in on the starship while it accelerates, however
it will take an infinite time to definately reach it, unless the ship stops
accelerating (or accelerates less than before).
Note that when the ship accelerates less, that after a while again the light
cannot catch up with it.
Also just stopping acceleration for a while (and cruising with the same
speed) and the again accelerating like before will not help. Well, you could
actually "recharge your batteries" while cruising. Then after they were
recharged you could accelerate a while untill the batteries were drained.

Timothy