Re: RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Deceleration scheme

[kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo)]

KellySt@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 8/5/97 3:55:37 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker)
>wrote:

>>Well, we can slam a Starwisp up to .9c in about three weeks with a Maser 
>>Sail. Perhaps we should start exploring now with Starwisps while we build 
>>infrastructure for larger manned sails. We could at least settle everything
>>within about 10 light years if we could get up to .5c. We would be sending 
>>out ships crewed with children to do it....of course there wouldn't be any 
>>chance of coming back.

>What good is a starwhisp you can't stop in the target system?

Here's an insane idea.  (Some ideas are just kind of insane, like using
starlight to *ahem* decelerate a starship--this idea is _really_ insane.)

You know how integrated circuits are currently manufactured by building
up and/or etching away layers of semiconductors and metal?  What if
such manufacturing techniques were employed to build something bigger,
like a mining robot or something?

Maybe you could build something on an atmosphereless planet using
templates transported by starwisps slamming into it at relativistic
speeds.  You can etch away layers by using thin templates and you
could deposit layers by using a layer which vaporized in sunlight
(so as to be a puff of gas by the time it hit the target).

_If_ you could manufacture things this way, it is conceivable that
you could build mining robots and mass drivers on a target world
which could create a deceleration track for later starships.

But like I said, this is a _really_ insane idea.  The mind boggles
at the technical difficulties.

>Multi gen ships ad a host of problems.  A multi-generation colony ship would
>probably need to be a few orders of magnatude bigger and more complex.  We'ld
>never try them with sublight ships.
-- 
    _____     Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo
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