On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 1:23 AM, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > A TL8 nuclear pulse drive with fuel for 15 hours is going to be > 5.29 lbs. per lb. of initial thrust.
Do you mind if I ask how you arrived at that number? (I believe it; I'd just like to be able to apply the same process myself.) > Add a bit for frame and > payload, and the thrust starts out at 0.15 G or so before it > slowly increases to the single digits. Drop tanks would help > a little, but that would mean a custom-built ship for this > specific run. > > With 87.5% fuel -- and that is a lot for such a design -- the > delta-V will be roughly 130 mps. I don't want to do the maths > before breakfast, but I'm confident that we're talking about > less than 3 million miles distance. > > Forget Mars. Forget Venus. Perhaps a near-earth asteroid on > the slow way to Earth. I can work with that. (Now, to see if I can work out equivalent numbers for TL9 drives...) Thank you for your time, -- DataPacRat lu .iacu'i ma krinu lo du'u .ei mi krici la'e di'u li'u traji lo ka vajni fo lo preti _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
