starship-design: debate

[Kelly St <KellySt@aol.com>]

In a message dated 12/6/97 10:51:38 AM, kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu wrote:

>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.

Thats why you need a phased array systems.  That way its not important where
the individuale elements are.  Just they they know exactly where they are
relative to one another.

>>>>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).

I was refuring to the Late '50's when the early booster design studies for
lunar missions were done..  Thou to be fair it was pretty obviuos we could
convert the big missles, and by the time the space race officially begane were
were fartherr along then I mentioned.


>>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.

Unaffordable, yes.  Certainly I can't think of anyreason we would put the kind
of funds and effort it would take to do this by then unless (as I've stated
earlier) some manufacturing tech (like automated selfreplicating systems)
drastically lowered the cost.


>>>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!

STOP WHINNING!!


>>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.

I did read it, and responded to it with technical criticisms, and several
times mentioned parts that I could clearly interpret.  Given the obvious
contradictions I'm eaither not following what your saying, or your idea seems
contradictory.


>-- 
>    _____     Isaac Kuo 


Kelly