> <TL10 Antimatter powered ships> You could actually have them at about
>TL7-8. At least according to an article I read about umpteen years ago, if
>you took the power generated by the U.S. you could make about 1 kilogram
>of antimatter in about 1 year.
> Now presuming a world decided to send up Solar Arrays early, and used
>the power generated to create AM, they could skip most of the work on Fusion
>power and skip directly to AM power (of course some of the work is related,
>as I imagine an AM power plant would have some of the same construction
>requirements as a Fusion plant.
An interesting reference is Dr. Robert L Forward's book, _Future Magic_,
which describes many wonderful things (none of which appear to need any
"physics nullifiers"). One of the more interesting proposals was for
antimatter powered space travel. He does an interesting analysis that
shows that antimatter powered upper stages may be practical for Space
Shuttle payloads. The gist of the idea is that it costs quite a lot (in
terms of money and fuel) to lift many tons of rocket fuel into orbit on
the space shuttle. A few grams of antimatter can do the same job, and
may cost less in the long run. He also presents some workable TL8
containment and propulsion ideas. It is possible that Earth will
achieve workable fusion technology and workable antimatter technology at
about the same time. Maybe we should toss the TL chart and draw a new
one.
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Science-Fiction Adventure
in the Far Future