| From : |
Peter Hanely |
| Date : |
2003-07-07 12:15:58 |
| Subject : |
Re:ammount of free particles in space |
Bruno Ogorelec wrote :
>Eric,
>
>But of course! Interstellar ramjet is something the entire humankind can't muster right now. We are not talking enthusiast's engines here.
>
>Your figures are daunting, but they don't have to mean much. First, you can have your drive at some considerable distance from your craft. There's plenty of space in space. So, the field can be kept well away from passengers and cargo.
>
>Second, you really need only very moderate, even puny, thrust because it will be constant. Do some arithmetics with _constant_ acceleration. It is a fantastic thing, like compound interest.
>
>It is so much better than your notion of getting to a high speed and then coasting. That way, you always remain slow. With constant thrust, you just climb asymptotically towards lightspeed.
>
>Nothing else we know about will give you that.
Bruno
I came up with a thruster for working with diffuse ionized gasses a few years ago. The baseline configuration consisted of:
- maybe a dozen loops creating a toriodal magnetic field (think tokomak)
- a ring of electron emmiters around the outer circumference of the toroid.
- a set of electron collectors at the center of the assemblege, probably around the spacecraft being propelled.
Bulk magnetic and electric fields would be across each other and direction of thrust. Alltogether a very skeletal structure.
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Re:ammount of free particles in space
( 2003-07-07 12:15:58)