RE: starship-design: What is safest?

[TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

Lee wrote:

>> Hmm, I didn't think of comparing a bomb to a starship exhaust. While I've
>> heard of designs that actually propose exploding an H-bomb behind the
>> ship,
>> I didn't think we'd do it that litterally. It surely would ask a lot more
>> of structural enhancing.
>> For a more graduate flight, you'd need a little bit more control than a
>> bomb. My guess is that the kind of control and savety is comparable to
>> that of a fusion powerplant. (Afterall we are talking about power outputs
>> several order bigger than we are used to from ordinary power plants.)
>
>As far as I know, the ONLY current designs with sufficient ISP are 
>derivatives of Orion.

The more derived they are, the more complicated they get. Are Orion or any
of its current derivatives usable to get us towards several tenths of c?
Still the firing rates for these engines are quite low. If they don't rattle
the ship to pieces, they are likely going to make the crew very sick.

Tim