“Spacecraft Design for Science Fiction Authors”

I started working on this "textbook" 7 or so years ago and for various
reasons just let it slide. A few people have suggested that it'd be
worth completing and publishing. I've posted a further description,
plus a chunk out of the "antimatter" chapter, he
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5258

If anyone has comment yea or nay, i'd be interested.

My reply also on your website:

Scott,

I think you should go for it. But I have an ulterior motive.

I would like to see a chapter on the feasibility of an EMP version of
Orion. Instead of a pusher-plate, a giant antenna capable of converting a
goodly percentage of the bomb energy into electricity to power a capacitor
bank powering a hydrogen fed VASIMR. The bomblets would be redesigned to
maximize EMP from a thermonuclear explosion. For use outside Earth orbit.

Even Winchell Chung says you should go for it! And so do I. I’d buy a copy…

Dave

On Feb 1, 10:43*am, "
wrote:
I started working on this "textbook" 7 or so years ago and for various
reasons just let it slide. A few people have suggested that it'd be
worth completing and publishing. I've posted a further description,
plus a chunk out of the "antimatter" chapter, hehttp://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5258

If anyone has comment yea or nay, i'd be interested.

Air Force pursuing antimatter weapons
Program was touted publicly, then came official gag order

See:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGM393GPK1.DTL

On Feb 1, 11:57*am, wrote:
On Feb 1, 10:43*am, "

wrote:
I started working on this "textbook" 7 or so years ago and for various
reasons just let it slide. A few people have suggested that it'd be
worth completing and publishing. I've posted a further description,
plus a chunk out of the "antimatter" chapter, hehttp://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5258

If anyone has comment yea or nay, i'd be interested.

Air Force pursuing antimatter weapons
Program was touted publicly, then came official gag order

See:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...4/10/04/MNGM39....

Or maybe it was spent on single malt scotch and fast women. And the
general was
just pulling the chain of the Russian and Chinese intelligence
services for the
pure heck of it.

Drinks for all........................Trig

wrote in message
...
I started working on this "textbook" 7 or so years ago and for various
reasons just let it slide. A few people have suggested that it'd be
worth completing and publishing. I've posted a further description,
plus a chunk out of the "antimatter" chapter, he
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5258

If anyone has comment yea or nay, i'd be interested.

I cross posted it to an ng that might have more use for it.
See what they think?

On Feb 1, 7:56*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:

I cross posted it to an ng that might have more use for it.
See what they think?

It mentions

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/

which is an interesting site that I think is familiar to some people
here already.

John Savard

wrote:
Air Force pursuing antimatter weapons
Program was touted publicly, then came official gag order

See:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGM393GPK1.DTL

"Positronium"?
Oh, I love that one - it sounds dorky even by Star Trek standards.
Ranks right up there with the Army's Gyrotron Gun for crowd control.
One means of storing antimatter got discussed in AW&ST many years ago;
There are certain types of salt molecules whose atomic matrix has a void
in its center where a atom of antimatter can be stored.
In fact, Potassium-40 in potassium chloride salt substitute already has
some anti-electrons in it.
Be concerned if the Pentagon suddenly tries to corner the world's banana
supply: http://tertiarysource.net/ts.cgi/anti-banana so they can
_monkey around_ with antimatter.
Hah! Bananas..."Monkey around"! Get It?


Pat

On Feb 2, 2:10 am, Pat Flannery wrote:

"Positronium"?
Oh, I love that one - it sounds dorky even by Star Trek standards.

Except that it is real. The deca of a para-positronum atom produced
two gamma rays, and serves as the basis of positron emission
tomography (PET) scanners. Even positronium hydride has been created
and observed.

In some cosmological models (the type that do not include dark energy
ripping the universe to shreds via rapidly accelerating anti-gravity,
or collisions betwen M-branes) where the universe just keeps chugging
along forever, after somethign like 10^100+ years, when all higher
particles have decayed away, the last remaining structures in the
universe will be atoms of positronium. Given the expansion of the
universe, though, the overall density of the universe will be
vanishingly thin... and the single electron and positron in each atom
would be gravitationally bound to each other... over distances of
lightyears.

wrote:
On Feb 2, 2:10 am, Pat Flannery wrote:

"Positronium"?
Oh, I love that one - it sounds dorky even by Star Trek standards.

Except that it is real. The deca of a para-positronum atom produced
two gamma rays, and serves as the basis of positron emission
tomography (PET) scanners. Even positronium hydride has been created
and observed.

Andre Sakharov was right...the military won't be satisfied till it has a
system where you can push a button and the whole planet explodes.
Terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear weapon is bad enough to
contemplate, but at least the thing would have some size and weight to
it, and you might be able to detect it via its radioactive emissions.
A antimatter bomb could be the size of a hand grenade and completely
undetectable till it went off.

Pat

In sci.space.policy message , Mon, 1
Feb 2010 14:42:25, David Spain posted:
My reply also on your website:

Scott,

I think you should go for it. But I have an ulterior motive.

I would like to see a chapter on the feasibility of an EMP version of
Orion. Instead of a pusher-plate, a giant antenna capable of converting a
goodly percentage of the bomb energy into electricity to power a capacitor
bank powering a hydrogen fed VASIMR. The bomblets would be redesigned to
maximize EMP from a thermonuclear explosion. For use outside Earth orbit.

Your problem is innumeracy combined with a lack of physics.

Very roughly speaking, a tonne of nuke - fissiles and the rest - has the
energy of a megatonne of TNT. TNT stores chemical energy about as
efficiently as possible (not as efficiently, but not greatly less).
Energy storage in a capacitor is in a manner akin to chemical energy -
both involve distortion of electronic structure - and a capacitor
capable of rapid charge and/or discharge must have a substantial
proportion of its mass in "wiring" rather than in storage as such.

Therefore, capacitors to store a nuke's energy must weigh so enormously
much more than the nuke that you'd do better to use TNT or similar as
direct rocket fuel. And TNT is not as good at energy storage as tanked
LOX & LH2.



Here's something else to bear in mind - remember 1957-12-06? Vanguard
TV3. Energy sufficient to orbit a small satellite was released on the
pad, and was very adequate to destroy the rocket.

Now a rocket is really rather good at leaving almost all of its stored
energy behind itself except for what goes into speeding the vehicle. A
system employing nukes for higher performance would have to be very good
at not dissipating inefficiency-energy in its own structure - and
electrics/electronics to do what you want would definitely not be 100%
efficient.

--
(c) John Stockton, near London.
Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Correct = 4-line sig. separator as above, a line precisely "-- " (RFC5536/7)
Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with "" or " " (RFC5536/7)