Re: RE: starship-design: What is safest?

[Kelly St <KellySt@aol.com>]

In a message dated 1/7/98 10:24:22 PM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl wrote:

>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.

The pulse fusion systems generally work at a couple hundred cycles per
secound.  Magnetic/electrostatic confinment systems are more steedy flow.

>Tim