Re: Project Orion Reborn.
Posted by Amaranth Rose on Feb 11, 2004 at 21:36
(65.172.150.222)Re: Project Orion Reborn. (Wayne Smith)
Hey, a ten is still a ten! I'll take 'em where I can get 'em!
It lends a whole new meaning to the phrase "Drums in the deep", eh?
But you're feeding energy into the system by rewinding the spring. Wouldn't some of that energy be transferred to the back of the ship as some kind of motive force? If I cock my rubber-band hammered soybean shooter and release it, it still pops the soybean a dozen yards and gives a slight forward recoil to the pistol. If I don't have a soybean in the chamber, the forward recoil is more. Now I realize a soybean shooter is no starship, but don't the same laws of momentum and recoil apply in space? If I rewind the springs (rubber bands) with a motor that applies electrical energy to produce a mechanical effect, I've not violated causality nor the laws of thermodynamics. Eventually the springs are going to break (the rubber bands wear out, too) but you could carry replacements.
I'm not pushing the mallet ship. I'm into quantum drives, myself. Now it's here...and now it's there, without appearing in the intervening distance. Safer, if you can avoid the occasional asteroid in the gut. However, if the supernova next door is going to wipe out life on my planet, I'd sooner be pounding my way through space away from here than waiting to be fried.
Follow Ups:
- Re: Project Orion Reborn. Wayne Smith 12/2 17:03 (0)