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starship-design: Re: starships




In a message dated 1/5/99 10:02:26 AM, jdavis@crcom.net writes:

>Your explorer class starship is a nuclear electric propulsion
>interstellar ramjet, and so are many of my own designs.
>The idea of placing fuel in the starships path artificially
>,however is impractical. A nuclear electric ramjet must use
>ion or plasma type engines to propell it. A nuclear fission 
>electric power source is sufficient to energize such a vessel.
>Nuclear fusion , and antimatter power sources are desirable,
>but they are not required . The strength of the interstellar
>magnetic field is 1 * 10 to the - 6 power gauss. The strength
>of the interstellar electric field is 1.6 * 10 to the -19 power
>electron volts. The ion collection radius of a ramscoop is
>the distance at which the ramscoop field is stronger then the 
>interstellar field. The strength of the ramscoop field declines
>proportional to the inverse square of the distance from its sources.
>This means that an electrostatic field achieves the greatest ion
>collection radius in interstellar space. If we use a 1000 volt
>electrostatic ramscoop field the ion collection radius will be
> equal to 1.6 * 10 11 th power meters. 1.6 * 10 (19) + 1 * 10 to
>the 3rd power volts is 1.6 * 10 to the 22nd power. The square
>root of 1. * 10 to the 22 power is 10 to the 11 power by the 
>inverse square law. 10 to the 11 power meters is equal to 
>100,000,000 kilometers. This 1000 volt bussard ion collector
>will then have an ion collection radius of 60,000,000 miles.
> This is why the electrostatic bussard ion collector is the
>solution to the problem of ramscoop design. Any comments?
>Timothy J. Mayes

Sorry its not a nuclear electric propulsion interstellar ramjet, its a fusion
direct plasma drive.  We gave up on ramjets when we realized there was so
little known mass in this area of interstellar space, the scoops would be hard
pressed to scoop up as much mass as the scoop gear would weigh.  (I wen't into
that somewhere in the site but can't find it at the moment.

Sorry for the delay geting back to you.  Been crazy around here lately.

Kelly