Jonathan Silverlight wrote in message ...
In message , Jim
Greenfield writes
(Steve Willner) wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jonathan Silverlight writes:
A Busssard ramjet, as you may already know. Doesn't work, for all sorts
of reasons.

Hard to build, no doubt, but "doesn't work?" Why not? Are you
thinking of the mythical "ramjet speed limit?"

Is there any chance of surmising from the design of Cassini whether a
sustantial differential in the EMR emmission is in one direction?
I suspect tumbling would be the most likely outcome, rather than
linear accelleration.

I don't think so. That's what this argument is about. Anderson et al.
seem to be saying they can't model the emission accurately enough, while
Bertotti et al. seem to disagree. The "thermal thrust" is really, really
tiny and isn't something the mission planners have to worry about. It
just affects very small and possibly non-existent things like the
Pioneer anomaly. The results say _something_ is pushing against
Cassini's direction of movement, and emission from the spacecraft is the
most likely cause, since most of it is facing away from Earth behind the
main dish antenna.

Thanks (for the egg on my face re my ignorance)

Jim G