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

[Kelly St <KellySt@aol.com>]

In a message dated 12/4/97 1:22:14 PM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu wrote:

>>The size of the bullet
>>is based on logistics and weight trad offs, and the blast power by the
>>tolerances of the solder.
>
>If we increased performance by having rounds 1% of the
>current typical size which were equally effective, the advantages
>would be enormous.
>
>We haven't.

Agreed, but then the physics of momentum would kinda forbid that.  I.E. 1% the
current round size with the same range impact energy would probably require
hypersonic flechettes.  They decelerate too fast and slam the hell out of you
arm.

>>But none of this related to the starship design!!
>
>You suggested that a few decades was always sufficient to vastly
>improve technological capabilities.
>
>This simply isn't always the case, and I was merely trying to
>demonstrate counterexamples.
>
>If you were paying any attention, you'd have remembered.

I do remember.  To be precise I was suggesting it was likly we could
dramatically increase the speed of a probe after 20 years.  Given that base
probe was suggested by you to be a .1c sail probe, with a roughly 44 year
flight time.  Doubling the speed would meerly require doubling the emmitter
systems, increase the sail thrust to weight ratio, cut the probes dry weight,
etc..  In general these would be pretty easy to do over 20 years.  In general
double the speed of systems after 20 years hasn't been difficult in the past
when attempted (one of the reasons race cars and planes have speed limiting
rules).

Going from this off into arguments over the relative performane of army guns
and street cars is kinda off topic, since the reason for ther speed capacities
isn't generally limited by technology.  Certainly no tech related to
interstellar probes.

Kelly