Anders Sandberg wrote:
> BTW, any opinions on whether it is useful to use a nuclear Nerva
> rocket or whether plain oxygen-hydrogen fuel works well?
>
> > Of course, if it is just for a roleplaying game... {8-] spike
>
If the scenario is set enough years ahead (20 to 30 is sufficient, I'd
guess), you might have them using antimatter-catalyzed fission. NASA has
recently started looking closely at this possible technology. Of course,
it requires the building of at least one 20-billion dollar Bulk-Antimatter
production facility, but it has many things going for it. It is almost as
energy compact as straight antimatter-matter reactions, but uses only
about 1/100 the amount of antimatter for a given mission. I don't have a
URL handy, but I seem to remember seeing it at NASA's advance propulsion
systems website.
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:39 MDT