> From: [email removed]
> Subject: Fusion rockets....
> Actually, these last couple, the feeling is more disgust than
> laughter...
Nice that you manage some distance to the subject.
> >Will the other 8kT be radiation? Some of it in the form of
> >soft xrays perhaps?)
>
> Probably not. Probably hard gammas and neutrinos.
Absolutely zero soft xrays? Do we know this?
A reality check on this reveals that if it was true, that fusion reactions
don't result in any soft xrays, then the fireball from a fusion weapon would
be proportional to the *fission* part of the yeild and not the whole yield.
There is no trace in tNoEW of this.
> But the radiation
> will be stopped by the nozzle, or the ship will be useless in atmosphere
> or out of it.
"Stopped by the nozzle" and exactly how did you intend to make that happen
without a magic force field? Assuming a somwhat decent spread of the exhaust,
the radiation will be below hazardous levels at 50km in deep space, especially
considering the minimum of 5cm of steel all ships have. So the ships will
still not be a traffic hazard in space even if the radiation through the
nozzle isn't stopped.
> Bertil, once the plasma leaves the nozzle, it doesn't matter a flip
> whether it was the result of fusion, chemical reaction, or someone
> blowing real hard. All that matters is the kinetic energy of the
> particles, and the size and shape of the nozzle. And all the fluid
> dynamics *I* ever learned says that a jet that hot will do an enormous
> amount of damage to everything below it. And it won't form a fireball,
> unless all those fluid dynamics professors were incompetent inbeciles...
IMPORTANT:
This leads me to suspect that you have missed my point, more or less.
I have never claimed that the *matter* part of the exhaust would form a
fireball, or that a citykilling plasma jet 50km long would *not* result.
I was arguing that the *radiation* part of the exhaust (unless stopped by
that radiation-absorbing magic force field of yours) would, through the same
mechanism as in nukes, form a thermal fireball somewhere aft of the ship.
It is further immaterial wether this fireball moves away from the ship
at whatever speed or not, because as long as the engines are running it will
be replenished by new radiation.
> ---Steve Higginbotham
> "A reaction drive is a weapon, whose efficiency is in direct proportion
> to its efficiency as a drive." ---The Kzinti Lesson (by Larry Niven).
They used photon engines, didn't they?
- -bertil-
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