RE: starship-design: Engine Parameters

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

Nels,

> An acceleration of 90 m/ss for your high engine performance is
> impractical.  This is for the simple reason that this equals about nine
> gee's.  Even if an engine could be made to do this, no human frame can
> take that much acceleration for more than a few minutes (here I assume we
> continue with the idea of manned missions....

MOST of our current chemical rockets can do this, so building an engine or
vehicle that can withstand 9 g's isn't impossible, as for special designs,
most modern homebuilt kit planes are designed for a maximum loading of 9
g's. There isn't anything terribly special about using this as a maximum
design load.

As for continuous acceleration, for the high end category I think 10 m/sec
(1 g) should be the absolute minimum. BTW, before someone jumps my shorthand
version, I am purposely not writing the ^2, its a danged nuisance...I assume
that is why you wrote the m/ss?

Lee