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

[kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo)]

KellySt@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 12/4/97 9:27:13 PM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu wrote:

>>KellySt@aol.com wrote:
>>>In a message dated 12/1/97 7:50:01 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu wrote:

>>>>You can say Forwards pure sail system is also "simple brute force tech".
>>>>Actually, it requires much less technology than this "fuel/sail" idea.
>>>>It doesn't require exotic fusion technology.

>>>However the drop sail/reflector had serious problems and would probably not
>>>be able to function, much less acuratly target and decelerate the ship.
>>> Which is why we droped it from consideration a couple years ago.

>>The technical problems with Forward's pure sail system are dwarfed by
>>the technical challenge of building the astronomical beam emitter
>>system in the first place.

>Not really, the latter is just a question of scale.  We could certainly build
>it, we just could afford it.  Forwards system is probably technically
>impossible regardless of cost.

It's not just a question of scale.  The emitter system has to roughly
keep "flat", and it's inconceivably huge (the emitter for the
deceleration leg must fire its beam over interstellar distances).
If you can create that interstellar beam emitter system at all,
the rest seems like child's play.

>>>So was the Sat-V concept at the time.  But I agree the scale and its implied
>>>cost are critical problems.

>>No it wasn't.  It's only a couple orders of magnitude larger than its
>>predecessors.

>At the time it was proposed and designed our best boosters were failing to
>lift 30 pound objects to orbit.  The Sat-v was rated at 220,000 pounds to
>orbit.  4 orders of magnitude performance boost out of the same integrated
>system.  (I'm assuming you don't consider the "only a couple orders of
>magnitude" larger?)

Comparing oranges to apples.  Our "best" boosters weren't rated at only
30 pounds--they were just trying to fly them with those small paloads.
Actually, at the time our boosters _had_ put objects in orbit (I'm
talking about the Soviets--they're humans too).

>The sail systems could just use fleets of (hopefully by then) 'standard'
>orbital microwave power sats.

Yes, it's technically possible.  However, the many orders of magnitude
in scale needed to get up to an interstellar beam emitter is just
implausible in the next decades.

>>You did not.  You didn't even read my modified design (much less
>>understood it).

>>As I stated it, the power requirement was reduced by two orders of
>>magnitude.  If you want to dispute it, then at least read the
>>details to my modified design.

>I did, and responded a couple weeks back.

No you didn't, and you further evidence it here.

>You refused to read it past my
>"assuming you use 200 fuel packets" line at the start.

No, you "assumed several hundred" when _I_ explicitely wrote "200".
This was in the text you quoted immediately above your unnecessary
assumption!  Further evidence that you just can't keep track of
what's being said--even by yourself!

>Lets just drop this argument, its going no where.

It might go somewhere if you read my proof and dispute _it_, and not
some mixture of your own fantasy and straw man.

Honestly, it's better for you to dispute it with a logical argument
than for you to simply dismiss it out of hand.

Which is what you're doing if you don't even read it carefully.
-- 
    _____     Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo
 __|_)o(_|__
/___________\ "Mari-san...  Yokatta...
\=\)-----(/=/  ...Yokatta go-buji de..." - Karigari Hiroshi