RE: starship-design: Apology

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

Hi Lee,

>Not that I doubt you but, how did you come up with 20 kJ? even allowing
>for only a partial incomplete (messy) reaction I would have assumed it 
>would be somewhat more. Of course, I have never really had anything to 
>do with antimatter, only nuclear and chemical explosives.

I was a bit messy since I only responded to the prototype they talked about
in the first paragraph:
  It is a prototype for a trap, not necessarily any larger,
  capable of carrying 10+14 antiprotons for up to 120 days...

That's 1E14*1.67E-27 kg = 1.67E-13 kg
With E=mc^2 that means 15 kJ  (How I got 20kJ? I've no idea.)

However at the bottom of the message they talk about an RFQ storage ring
which should hold one microgram (=1E-9 kg).

E=mc^2=(1E-9)*(3E8)^2=9E7 J

So this prototype holds about 9E7 Joule (or 25 kWh). A bit more that the
20kJ but not even enough to keep a regular lightbulb burning for half an hour.

I'm sorry to have made an uncomplete response before.

>As far as the trip to Mars goes, the antiprotons are for ACMF (Antiproton
>Catalyzed Micro Fusion/fission) which is more than adequate for a fast 4 
>month trip.

I wonder how much antiprotons they'll need.

Timothy