writes:

Funny thing is that Werner Von Brown was the one who proposed this ion
engine more than 50 years ago. What was it with these Germans --

Conceptually, nearly all rocket engines are _EXTREMELY_ simple devices,
involving no physics discovered after WW2. The devil has been in the
_PRACTICAL ENGINEERING DETAILS_, not the concepts.


Einstein and Von Brown. Too bad they didn't team up.

It is unlikely that they would have accomplished much more together
than they accomplished separately. Einstein was a theoretical physicist,
not an engineer, and as I noted earlier, the problem was not with the
theory, but with the practical engineering.


Maybe together they could have put together a craft that approached
the speed of light.

Highly unlikely. They would have been stopped by the same reason we a
Lack of a sufficient power source. Even matter/antimatter power maxes out
around 80% of lightspeed, unless you use truly ridiculous amounts of it !!!


-- Gordon D. Pusch

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