Re: starship-design: Timothy's beamed power paper

[Zenon Kulpa <zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl>]

> From: jimaclem@juno.com
>
> Oops, sorry bout' that.  Here goes again.
> 
>                  payload -->  OO
>     compression  mbr.  ||
> _________________     __________________
> \                                        ||                              
>            /
>     \                                    ||                              
>       /
>          \                               ||                              
>  /
>               \                          ||                          /
>                    \                     ||                     /
> tension mbr. \                ||                /
>                              \           ||           /
>                                   \      ||      /
>                                       \  ||  /
>                                          ||
> 
> Hope this is better.  The sail pulls a column that passes through the
> sail, with the payload on top, away from the Earth side of the sail.
> 
Sorry, did not work this time either.
Did you compose the art using fixed font?
If your mailer uses a proportional font, the effects 
would be just that, on any receiver's screen using
different font than yours (e.g., on mine - the standard fixed font
like Courier or Monospaced used by most mailers).
And note also a strange line I have found in the header of your mail:

> X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-58,60-95,97,99,101-109,111-113

Concerning the idea itself, I have doubts:
- the central compression column must quite thick, hence heavy:
  the problem is not so much with compression strength
  as with bending of long (relative to width) objects
  compressed lengthwise (the effect is called "buckling"
  if I am not mistaken).
- the construction will be rather unstable (like Wright brothers
  early planes, with their tail-first design): the central column
  wil tend to veer to the sides.

The parachute design seems much better; the payload can be
shielded from the beam by a small sail supported by correspondingly
small truss structure.

-- Zenon