[TML] Freelance Traveller Contest 2008-01: Lead to some other thoughts, questions and inventions about gravity generators.

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 5/1/08 6:03 PM, "Richard Aiken" <raikenclw at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 12:43 PM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
>> On 1 May 2008 at 0:28, Richard Aiken wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 6:43 PM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
>>>> On 24 Apr 2008 at 0:20, Richard Aiken wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> So a ton of fuel at 100 tons thrust would last for 6000 seconds or
>>>> 1.67 hours.
>>> 
>>> Okay.  And the drive exhaust is a blow torch.  Real good reason to
>>> have Star-Wars-type docking bays.
>> 
>> A blowtorch the same way that Hiroshima was a firecracker.
> 
> "Going to full burn in atmo?  Are you CRAZY?"

Heh.  In David Drake's RCN series, the ships use a plasma drive to reach
orbit and out a bit, then switch to antimatter drive.  Using the antimatter
drive in atmosphere is *possible*, but rapidly destroys your engines (a few
antimatter particles escape reaction *inside*, and erode the rocket
nozzles).  If you're that desperate, might as well just kiss your @$$
goodbye.  :)