Re: starship-design: Tugs

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/3/97 4:44:31 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van
der Linden) wrote:

>Kelly wrote:
>
>>>>>>That would only work if the sail is anchored to something by cables.
>>>>>> Otherwise its effectivly a sheet of paper blown in the wind (or a
domed
>>>>>>shaped peice of paper if you prefer.).
>>>>>
>>>>>I figured the sail always had to be anchored by cables...
>>>>
>>>>Anchored to what?  Unless the anchor weighs enough it can't 'anchor' the
>>>>sail.  In the case of fuel/sail, the sail is 400 times heavier.
>>>
>>>Anchored to the ship. The ship doesn't need to be heavier, it just should
>>>want to accelerate less than the sail, which it does as soon as you cut
the
>>>cables.
>>
>>But the ship is (in my Fuel/Sail idea) 1/400th the weight of the sail.  So
>>the ship's weight is probably not enough to stablize the sail.
>
>The weight difference only modifies the speed at which changes can be made.
>Indeed of the imbalances in the sail occur faster than then they can be
>corrected, then we are in trouble.
>But thinking about this, why did you want to make the sail so heavy? Why not
>just put all that fuel in tank sattached to the ship and make the sail as
>light as possible?
>
>Timothy

The sail was made out of the fuel.  Figured spreding it out would maximize
the surface area for the collectors.

Kelly