For the relative velocity, don't forget to add in the speed of the incoming vessel. There is also a little bit of outgoing thrust that you can get from it, but since you have not been accelerating for hundreds of years the relative velocity will be somewhat less(also, they will be moving in the same direction as the wind, so the out-bound benefits will decrease with both distance and speed)
NASA says Sol has solar winds ranging from 300k/s(over Streamers) to 800k/s(over Coronal Holes), usually closer to 400 km/s though. 2% of ls is roughly 6000k/s, so even if the star is identical to SOL the Magsail should provide about fifteen times the thrust for slowing down that it provided speeding up on the way out of the Sol system. (perhaps more if the braking efficiency is improved at higher speeds) On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Jon Lang <[email protected]> wrote: > In "Generation ships with Vehicles", Anthony Jackson wrote: >> Magsail thrust is dependent on velocity relative to the medium being pushed >> against, and on the density of the medium; the 63 ton figure is for a medium >> at the velocity and density of the solar wind. Naturally, this isn't covered >> in Vehicles. > > Is there a reasonable estimate of the speed and density of a star wind > based on its spectral type? It would be nice to be able to determine > what sorts of performance characteristics a magsail would have in > other star systems. > > -- > Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang > _______________________________________________ > GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> > http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l > -- The man that holds fast to his bitterness will eventually be consumed by it, but if you let it go, your arms will be free to seize the glory that is life. -Terwin _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
