Re: RE: starship-design: Plasma power

[Connor <chithree@boo.net>]

"Thrust drops off rapidly as the distance from the pusher plate increases.
VASIMR is a much more low tech concept that is capable of providing
the same performance and is "tunable". "

Forgive me if my question is very rudamentary (I have a hard time reading all the way 
through some of these messages,) but this sounds terribly innefficient to me. If you're 
talking about varying the thrust by changing the distance from the pusher plate, doesn't 
that mean that you're expelling the same amount of energy, no matter how fast you want 
to go?

Connor
chithree@boo.net