On 9/12/2011 7:45 PM, DataPacRat wrote:
I'm advising someone writing a story in the 'New Attica' setting, and
for certain reasons, we'd like to be able to courier a particular
someone to a hab orbiting Earth in about 15 hours. It's still flexible
as to where said personage is being couriered from; the initial
suggestion was from Saturn, but since that would require 200 gravities
of constant thrust, that seems to be ruled out.
GVB suggests that, ignoring fuel, a rocket that's nothing but a big
TL8 nuclear pulse drive could reach about 20 gees, which would give an
outside range of around .95 AU... so I suggested Venus, which is only
.28 AU away during conjunction, and might allow a more feasible
vehicle (ie, one that has enough fuel for the trip).
So... how badly have I messed up my analysis? At hard-science
late-TL8, just how far/can/ you rocket in 15 hours? Do I need to
posit some random asteroid at that distance, or would bringing in a
TL9 drive make Venus feasible?
Thank you for your time,
Just remember that you're only going to be able to apply positive thrust
for half the journey, the other half will require the same amount of
thrust to decelerate so you can do more than wave as you scream past.
--
Kurt Feltenberger
[email protected]/[email protected]
http://www.casademon.org
"Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not living
enough." - Me
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