[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
One also needs to turn the heat into vehicle kinetic energy. The light to heat efficiency should actually be much higher than with transmission and spillover losses the main worries; say around 70%. Heat to vehicle KE in rockets with optimum specific impulse maxes out at around 67%, according a Barney Oliver paper some years ago. That puts the light energy to vehicle kinetic energy efficiency in the 50% ballpark.
The efficiency of heat --> KE can be made to approach 100% if the you're allowed to vary the specific impulse of the rocket (not that achieving maximum energy efficiency is desirable.)
Paul _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
