Re: starship-design: Stellar drive?

[Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>]

KellySt@aol.com writes:
 > >> Its called a Faraday cage.  Basicly a electrically 
 > >> conductive outer liner with no significant gaps 
 > >> for the fields to get through.
 > >
 > > Well, a Faraday cage has it's limits, it may decrease 
 > > the fieldstrength but depending on the structure 
 > > (thickness, conductivity, meshsize) of the wall
 > > it leaves through a certain amount.
 > >
 > > Timothy
 > 
 > Ok, be that way.  ;p   Coat the thing with a super conductor.  What gets
 > through you can convert back to electricity.  A better question is would the
 > thing work, and would it actually be efficent enough to be usful.  To my
 > surprize 1 is sounding likely.  On the other hand.  2 sounds like a no go.

Superconductors stop being superconductors in strong magnetic fields.
This is also a fundamental limit on the amount of current a
superconducting wire can carry, as above a certain amount of current the
magnetic field created by the current breaks down the superconductivity.
In the most entertaining cases this can result in the superconducting
wire vaporizing suddenly from the current dissipating through a now
resistive wire.