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Re: Re: starship-design: Re: Perihelion Maneuver




In a message dated 11/24/97 11:51:08 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu wrote:

>KellySt@aol.com wrote:
>>>With a wavelength of 1mm, that requires
>>>an aperture around 30,000km wide.  Don't tell me you're going to
>>>make a microwave laser that big.
>
>>As I mentioned a phased array maser cluseer of 2 AU recently (for fuel
sail),
>>and we have done extensive conversations of it a year ago, I'ld think we'ld
>>already covered that to death?  Hell they're even talking optical telescope
>>clusters on that scale.
>
>But it doesn't work.  You can get better resolution using a telescope
>with VLBI, but you can _not_ use phased array to acheive better power
>concentration.
>
>As you should know, VLBI increases resolution, but not sensitivity
>(compared to a single telescope of the same total aperture area).
>
>Think about what that means in reverse.  That means that a VLBI array
>of emitters will decrease illuminated spot size, but not illuminated
>spot brightness (compared to a single emitter of the same total aperture
>area).

Agreed, but the critical problem was resolution of the beam at long ranges.
 Beam intensity isn't as dificult to deal with.

Kelly