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Re: starship-design: combined fuel-track/electron beam ?
Timothy van der Linden wrote:
>
> Hi Kevin,
>
> You had a thought:
yeah, and it almost died of lonliness ;)
>
> >1) give the fuel pellets a net positive charge.
>
> To accelerate the pellets by electrical means?
Yes, partly, but also to help the ship draw them in.
>
> >2) accelerate the pellets with magnetic and electrical means
> >3) launch the fuel so that the fastest part is launched first.
>
> Why?
so that at any given moment, the fuel is in front of the ship, and the
electron beam is behind it.
>
> >4) as the ship launches, beam electrons at it.
>
> To make the ship attractive for the pellets?
Also to have an energy input and to cancel the net positive charge you
would be accumulating.
>
> Timothy
--
Kevin "Tex" Houston http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html
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