Re: starship-design: Tugs

[TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

Kelly,

You apparently did sent this reply only to me...

>The beam will have some variation over its size, and the interstellar medium
>will have some varioation differences, or charge differences.  Its gareenteed
>that thinks won't be perfectly balenced in a system this big.

Agreed.

>>Oh wait, wrinkling is likely not an issue, since we will make the sail so
>>that there is a slighly outward pressure that keeps the sail streched. Only
>>very big (catastrophic) uneven beampressures will then wrinkle the sail.
>
>That extrenal streach might be very hard for a fuel/sail ship to do since the
>ship is such a trivial % of the weight or load on the sail.

The strech is provided by the beam and sail themselves. If the beam hits the
sail under an angle, it will push the sail aside. Just like a parachute will
be blown open and not flap or wrinkle in the middle.
The only places that may wrinkle are the outsides.

>>I wonder what the concequences of such high uneven beampressures will do.
>>If only we could make parts of the sail transparent at will...
>
>You could fly a bunch of other sail ships around it.  They could move in to
>'shadow' part of the larger main sail if needed.

Doesn't sound good. Accelerating more than one sail is hard enough.

Timothy