RE: starship-design: Hull Materials

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

To Lee and Kelly,

>Why was the sail made of lithium?

If indeed it is used as fuel, the sail likely is to be thick and will absorp
ALL energy from the protons. A thick sail also has a smaller area to radiate
heat than a thin sail, since the energy that is absorbed in the front will
take a while to get to the back. As a result the front will be hotter than
the back. Effectively I'd say for a thick enough sail one can use one side
to radiate (thus the side facing the impacts).

Of course if the number of protons per cubic cm is small enough, there won't
be a problem.

Timothy