Re: fusors drives agility and stufflikethat

"Cap'n Paul" writes:
>      In fact, to really whip a starship around (like in a few seconds or
> so) the attitude jets have to produce a significant fraction of a 'g'.
> And that kind of acceleration does not come cheap.  Really.  Honest.

I agree.
I think that is what I was aiming for when I wanted to define agility as
rotational energy and speed.

Regarding fusion drives: Since the fusiondrive is supposed to be internal
and not drive around as a "simple" rocket engine, the efficienct figure of
a few percent for the powerplants seem a bit low.
(The last estimate was (I think!) around 250 MW /kl. Max TL15 is 18 MW /kl)
 A efficiency of around 15-20 percent would seem more appropriate.
I don't think the analogy with a bomb is applicable here, a bomb is in the
process of blowing up, scattering its fuel far and wide (at least in the later
stages) and a powerplant could seprate the unused hydrogene from the helium and
refeed it.

And let's hope that the powerplants continue to use a hydrogene or deuterium
only reaction. It's hard to scoop up Litium in a Gasgiant:-)

- -bertil-
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Bertil K K Jonell @ Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
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