From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Mon Sep 09 2002 - 12:41:39 MDT
On Mon, 9 Sep 2002 CurtAdams@aol.com wrote:
> You're proposing focusing a microwave beam over interstellar distances?
> No way.
It's not my proposal (duh, would I state anything so outlandish if I
dreamed it up myself? I wouldn't dare to). I don't have the skills to
predict properties of an optical instrument with an overall MT/s energy
flux and an aperture lighthours to lightdays across, but whether
phased-array or no, I consider that it is very possible to push a probe
for the first half a year with 3 g or so (then it's pretty relativistic,
and we can go back to carpe diem mode). Even if it takes more than 1% of
the entire solar output.
It is interesting that I receive a flat out rejection the second time this
day, to a pretty established (at least in lunatic fringe circles, such as
Forward and Dyson) statement, albeit on an utterly unrelated topic, on a
different mailing list, on a basically personal sentiment basis.
I agree it's outrageous enough, superficially.
> >A redundant dry system doesn't suffer damage by diffusible radicals. The
> >damage path is linear, and well defined
>
> The damage is also more restricted in area, which considerably increases
> the effect. Detection of alterations in mechanical systems is also very
Which is why I mentioned "redundant".
> difficult.
Actually, you get realtime (microseconds) feedback from a self-healing
system on the state of the damage. You can check this by testing the
amount of bitflips in a solid-state memory in vicinity of a radiation
source. If we want to talk vacuum-tube tech...
> The high-energy secondaries are the problem in any system.
Yes, but the regime for slow (0.1 c), fast (0.9 c) and very fast (>0.99 c)
is different. There might be three different regimes, because ultrahard
radiation doesn't really interact with targets. Which is why I mentioned
that for very fast travel/high energies the tungsten rod shield is
probably a liability, not an asset. You get sprayed with secondary
shrapnel from it, while a naked flat low-density, light-element disk with
self-repair would do considerably better, as most stuff would sail smack
right through it.
> Yes, experiments are the way to go. But the probable issue is not so
> much damage to the buckyball/buckytube itself as to the stuff outside
> the creates interactions and specificities.
Somebody fetch us a particle physicist. At least these people deal with
related issues on a daily basis...
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