RE: starship-design: Modular Ship Design

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

Kelly,

> -----Original Message-----
> Since I had a centrafuge with rotating segments.  The floor's can
> move to the
> sides front or rear as nessisary. Or for that mater you could
> just flip the
> hab segment over as you restack the modular ship?

Flipping the whole hab was pretty much the way I saw it too, it is just the
idea of doing this in flight at a significant fraction of light speed which
bothers me.

> By picking Lithum-proton as a fusion fuel, I figured we could do
> without tanks
> at all since the fuel is a structural metal.  So the drive system is
> effectivly a tug pushing a huge (or small depending) solid block of metal.
> Wrap yourself in it for shielding, stack it in frount for easy
> shoving, maybe
> even use it for structural supports.

It would probably need to be pelletized before it could be sent into the
reactor/engine. Just as easy to build a giant tank and fill it full of
lithium pellets.

> I don't worry as much about burn time limits, but with the fuel
> carry limits
> we have a prett much fixed upper speed limit.  I'ld rather get to
> it quickly,
> not speed half the flight geting to speed.

I don't see this at all.

Given:

Scenario A				Scenario B

1 G thrust				1 G thrust
3 month burn			3 year burn

Then delta v of Scenario A is less than delta v of Scenario B, and
total trip time of Scenario A is greater than Scenario B.

The only constraining factor is can we carry sufficient propellant to
maintain continuous thrust? (There is also the little problem that B
requires more engine than A as well...)

Lee Parker