RE: starship-design: New Idea from non member

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

Zenon,

>And probably the only solution would be to use a tug, 
>like in seaports...
>You cannot make so fine (30km/s) maneuvers
>with all that hundreds of kilometers of sail.


Of course you can do it with the sail - sort of. Powered gravity 
assist around the sun to bring the speed up to just under escape 
velocity on an outbound course, then deploy the sail to add the 
last few m/sec and final course corrections.

Actually, the argument you advanced is true of tugs because of the 
same arguments Kelly advanced against spinning the sail, it won't 
take that kind of point loading, you'll end up with the world's 
largest plate of sphagetti...


Lee Parker

                                                          (o o)
------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo---------
"Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way . . . knew 
little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most 
great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in 
everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to 
the disturbance of all conversation." 


-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Autobiography