Re: [Fwd: starship-design: HIGHLY OPTIMIZED TOLERANCE]

[Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca>]

KellySt@aol.com wrote:
> 
> Always?!  Lewis and clark, Stanly and Livingston, Coulumbus, etc.  Where do
> you get always?  Or even frequently?
> 
 
Remember that Women are not permitted in the NAVY and or ARMY or as
DOCTORS in those prehistoric times. I guess I have been reading to much
of "Geodyssey" series by Piers Anthony.  

> 
> NOI NO NO.  I mean current designs like Space Access' Ejector ramjet to Mach
> 6 then boost to orbit or stage to orbit.  DC-X designs.  Etc.
> 

Rotary Rocket and LightCraft are the only ones that look to be ready in
the near
future.+3 years. The other STO's are still several years away.

> You don't want to take a jump back to cruder dsigns, and of course you won't
> use the 1950's expendables dsigns, or '60's70ish  shuttle.
>
 
The shuttle's design is that way because of political influence,
a smaller lighter fully reusable shuttle could have been built then, but
the
USA had/has no plans for a permanent space station. 

> >> And how do you pay for that antimater?  Just make a straight fusion reactor
> >> and forget about it.
> >
> >I use a fusion reactor -- it is called the sun -- to make the
> >anti-matter.
> 
> To expensive, and complex.
>

Anti-matter is real now...Boom !!! was real.
Fusion is not.

> 
> >Anti-matter catalyzed fusion will probability come before straight
> >fusion,
> 
> Why?  Regular fusion research (ignoring the DOE work) has shown excelent
> results.  Its generally assumed we could get fusin in a decades or two if we
> tried.  Space is thought to be a "Market" that could support it.
>

That fusion has always been "10" years away since the 1960's. Your
fusion designs seem to the most probable of the lot of designs.


> 
> Then what do you propose?  They can't live there, the ship can't support them
> forever?  So where do they go?  Out the airlock?
>
  That is one of the advantages of self- suffentcy, you can build a new 
habitat. I would assume they die of old age, with children replacing the 
elders. Once in a new star system raw materials needed would be easily
found.
That is one reason the unmanned probe was sent earlier, to give the
basic
facts of the solar system.


> We differ in what we consider acceptable and practical.  If it takes to long
> to get the crew back alive - build a faster ship.  You can't get funding for
> a one way missin.

Funding is a big problem as investors always think of the next 6 months
rather
than the next 6 years.

> 
> Kelly

-- 
"We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents...
 We borrow it from our children."
The Lagging edge of technology:
http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/woodelf/index.html