RE: starship-design: Back from the wed

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

Ken,

>Okay, I'll run with it.  How about using a small supply of antimatter (
>not sure yet how much ) and using this to heat the reaction mass to high
>enough energies to make this efficient.  For that matter, why not use the
>tanker ideas to launch reaction mass to a ship, while it only carries the
>necessary antimatter.

Now for Jim's end run, suppose that we do build a small antimatter rocket 
of some sort. Let us make the sail out of vacuum deposited Tungsten which 
is also refractory and is still quite strong. It is almost as massive as 
Uranium, which might give us a great deal more thrust when we start to 
feed it to the antimatter rocket to decelerate.

Lee Parker

                                                          (o o)
------------------------------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo---------
I stared into the sky,
As wondering men have always done
Since beauty and the stars were one,
Though none so hard as I.

Ralph Hodgson, 1871 - 1962, Song of Honor