starship-design: Re: Perihelion Maneuver

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

L. Parker wrote:
>On Saturday, December 06, 1997 10:31 AM, Isaac Kuo 
>[SMTP:kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu] wrote:

>> My personal favorite is a modified MagOrion, where a track of nuclear
>> bombs are used to accelerate a large superconducting magsail.  The
>> bombs are detonated far from the magsail so that the exposure to
>> hard radiation is minimized and the push from the fraction of ions
>> which "hit" the sail is spread out.

>You really ought to check out Penn State's page on ICAN and the antimatter 
>catalyzed fission/fusion rocket. It is basically a modified Orion concept 
>that is much more refined than the original. Besides the fact that the 
>hardware is already being tested, it offers a lot more in near term 
>improvement potential.

While very promising, I don't like to trust the results of any one
research group no matter how prestigious.

>I haven't even used any hardware here that isn't already in existence or 
>made any assumptions that are really weird.

I personally expect positive results, but would not count on any
projected numbers until a full scale thruster was built and tested.
-- 
    _____     Isaac Kuo kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kuo
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