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RE: starship-design: New Idea from non member
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