Re: starship-design: Interstellar travel-using vacuum..ur point?

[A West <andrew@hmm.u-net.com>]

>> Forgive me, I'm just a lowly  chemist with a huge interest in astronomy and
>> physics.   The most plausible and acheivable goal for an STL (Slower than
>> light) ship sounds like a Bussard RAMJET (Elegent design) which could
attain
>> speeds in excess of 50% the speed of light.
>>
>> You have a better idea?  i want to know. write me back
>
>A Bussard Ramjet will get you up to 30%c, if interstellar hydrogen fuel
>is abundant enough, but will not go much faster. Drag with the
>interstellar medium will soon equal thrusting ratio, and acceleration
>will cease. This is not my idea, but one gleaned from quite a bit of
>study on ramjets. If you want to really use the vacuum of space for
>travel, you are venturing into something completely different, and not
>yet understood.

I believe there is increasing evidence that there are chains of organic
molecules evenly spread throught space (I assume this means through-out our
galaxy...) which could possibly explain away some of the 99% missing matter
we can observe through gravitational effects.  If you could use this as
fuel, then there would be an abundant supply.

Andrew West