Re: starship-design: LINAC efficiency

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/15/01 10:47:13 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net writes:

>> 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

Yup, recent supernova in the area cleaned out the area.  The formal name is 
something lige a local bubble or something.

Kelly