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starship-design: Vapor Trail Fuel




Hi, Curtis,

> > Until that be built, the airship will remain the most energy
> > efficient
> > transportation system ever devised by man.
> ...
> The upshot of which was that a rail system has the lowest rolling
> resistance of any system devised, hence it is the most efficient in
> use...

For surface transport. The airship, though, doesn't even have the rolling
friction of steel wheels over steel rails. Not being a surface transport,
wind drag is the only friction on an airship.

> (1) can your proposed aerostat really carry enough fuel for the job,
> considering that most of it will be lost? and

Perceptive question. Held out another gadget on you here. For the
fuel-dispensing tethered aerostat, I had a very particular design in mind.
This aerostat twists in the wind due to spiral construction, and around its
turning tether is wound a fuel feed tube which pumps fuel up to its release
point by its "Archimedes screw" constuction. So the aerostat does not have
to support the entire weight of the fuel stream to be released. It does have
to twist a heavy tether, though.

> (2) is said aerostat expendable? That fuel-hungry booster might just
> want to fly right up its ass . . .

The fuel-dispensing tether aerostat is at the head of the stream of fuel.
Ideally, the booster should be aimed to miss it, to join the stream a bit
downwind. The stream of fuel can be stopped when enough has been paid out,
and replaced by a slug of water to help prevent local fires, set by the
booster launch, from damaging the aerostat or its tether.

> I still like the magnetic rail launcher, and I don't see anything in
> the way of building it, other than money and politics (the same main
> obstacles to all the other ideas presented here).

I like maglev rail systems too. But steel things are heavy industry: money
moving around, officialdom involved, interminable delays, lawyers too and
you can't count on the reality of anything ever happening. Things dirtside
these days might be close enough to gridlocked, maybe we better start
thinking like Tom Swift, things we can do for ourselves seeking neither
backing nor sanction. My emphasis on inflatable and deployable ultralite
technology comes from that background. This is the same planet that lost the
technology to go to the moon thirty years ago. We didn't lose the knowledge,
but apparently we're losing strength.

Johnny Thunderbird