RE: starship-design: scoops and sails and something to push against.

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

Zenon,

> You probably misunderstood my post.
> I did NOT propose to propel the ship with pulsing MAGNETIC fields -
> I know the "stardrive" scheme would not work (we discussed it
> some time ago here).
> I wrote that Kevins electrostatic scheme may work with
> pulsing ELECTRIC fields, making a rather loose analogy with
> pulsing magnetic fields that do work in electric motors.
> I am not sure it will work, anyway - the main objection is that
> the ship floats within a cloud of charged particles
> of BOTH polarities. But maybe due to different masses of
> the particles with opposite charges (protons vs. electrons)
> some thrust can be generated in some way...
>
Sorry if I misunderstood. (I'm not sure I understood based on what you just
said, so I couldn't have misunderstood, not having understood it in the
first place <G>).

Masses are irrelevant the lighter particles are simply accelerated to higher
velocities and everything still balances. Now if the laser can produce an
imbalance by some trick such as polarization or something, this would be a
wonderful idea. I think I would still mount the shipboard lasers in case of
emergency though.

Lee