Re: starship-design: antimatter production

[Zenon Kulpa <zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl>]

> From: jimaclem@juno.com
> 
> Check this one out.  Their plan is to use antiprotons to catalyze a
> fission/fusion drive for use within the solar system. They have a paper
> on antimatter production, storage and transport.
> 
> http://antimatter.phys.psu.edu
> 
Yes, that is really exciting.
The general spaceship design resembles that described
by R.L. Forward in "Martian Rainbow".

The exciting information concerns the properties of antiprotons:
when they cool enough, the ratio of annihilation with the residual
gas in the vacuum chamber drops (unexpectedly) very rapidly !
Does it mean that sufficiently cool antimatter 
is rather reluctant to annihilate with the normal matter?
If it proves to be true, storage and handling of the antimatter
would be a lot easier (expect tanks with kilograms of antimatter
hauled over interstate highways ... ;-))

-- Zenon