starship-design: Casimir-Foreward balloon

[Timothy van der Linden <Shealiak@XS4ALL.nl>]

Hi Lee,

Thank you for giving yet another working design. It seems that this lead is
going somewhere realistic.

>The light from the flash lamp comes in from basically all directions and
>is emitted in only one. His design is very similar except that the mirror
>is one way and spherical - a semi-permeable membrane, in which microwaves
>come in from all directions and go out in only one - the hole.

This looks similar, but..
For a laser I know that the photons like to join other photons in doing the
same if they have nothing better to do. (Which is thhe general principle of
all bosons.)
In Connor's design this principle does not seem to be used, all photons
continuously have something better to do, and all go their own way, even
after they have left the exit.
For this matter Steve's design is closer.

>Although elegant, I don't believe he will get any net thrust out of it.
>The momentum vector will still sum to zero if you are using externally
>supplied radiation as the pumping device.

Of course the total momentum vector will be zero. But how large is total?
In Connor's design, at the end of the voyage, the volume in which the total
momentum is conserved has become pretty large. Yet the size is not a solid
reason to say (believe) that it won't work.

Timothy