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Re: starship-design: Clear view
At 5:26 PM 11/2/96, Timothy van der Linden wrote:
>Kelly replied:
>
>>>>>All in all I would think a frame with lasers and photocells (or whatever)
>>>>>would do the best job, another advantage of frames is that there is
>>>>>hardly a
>>>>>size limit...
>>>>
>>>>Given Rex was talking about arrarys hudreds of thousands of miles across, I
>>>>think a fixed structure is a no-go.
>>>
>>>Why can't it be a fixed frame? I don't see a problem about it.
>>
>>A fixed frame hudreds of thousands of miles across? Aside from problems of
>>structural strength, and lack of stiffness. What planet would you convert
>>into the framework?
>
>There are enough asteroids around to get the necessary materials from.
>About lack of stiffness and structural strength, I guess that depends on the
>way the array is constructed.
Its still not practical to try to build a solid structure the size of a
jovian planet. It wound be stiff, and will have a lot of trouble with
tidal forces. Its simpler and cheaper to just have a lose swarm of
syncronized transmitter platforms that wander around as need be.
>Timothy
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Kelly Starks Phone: (219) 429-7066 Fax: (219) 429-6859
Sr. Systems Engineer Mail Stop: 10-39
Hughes defense Communications
1010 Production Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46808-4106
Email: kgstar@most.fw.hac.com
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