RE: starship-design: LINAC efficiency

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

> Let's say your scoop can pick up on average 1 hydrogen atom per cubic
> centimeter.  Over a distance of 4.3 light years, you can pick
> up about 7
> * 10^-5 kilograms of hydrogen per square meter of scoop area.  So to
> pick up 10^9 kg of hydrogen during that trip, for example,
> you'd need a
> scoop with an area of 1.5 * 10^13 m^2, or some 2000 km in radius.

Did I miss something? I thought the local interstellar medium had been
determined to be thinner than once thought - like only 0.1 atom per cubic
meter...

Lee