starship-design: Long range fuel tankers

[jimaclem@juno.com]

I have a question.  I've been studying the fuel/sail and rair papers
(VERY INTERESTING) and a thought comes to me.  Since decelerating at the
target is important (obviously!) Why not launch a HUGE stream of fuel
tankers along with the ship in such a fashion that when the time for
retro comes, It starts catching these tankers, with a line of them behind
the ship catching up with it.  In fact, it seems that we could have the
ship build up the required fuel mass acceleration and deceleration. 
Possibly the ship could carry its own laser deceleration system to help
catch them.  The timing would be critical, but its easier than worrying
about huge sails, and massive microwave generators.  The ship could then
set up a series of automated factories, like the papers suggest, to make
return fuel, acceleration lasers, etc. I'll see if I can work something
up on this.

Jim