[X] My Assistant

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

OK, I'm in that unpopular camp that believes that the Breakthrough Propulsion Program should never be funded again -- we should not spend any money on Heim Theory, gyroscopic antigravity, space elevators, antimater engines, Bussard ramjets, black hole engines, UFO research, and zero-point energy. I have a radical alternative proposal.

Instead of using Wired Magazine physics to get to the stars, I'd like to use The Feynman Lectures physics to get to the stars. I propose building a craft powered by atomic fission. The engine would be a high-current linear ion accelerator, consisting of a superconducting niobium cavity resonator like this one, to get a nice healthy relativistic exhaust velocity.

[attachment=5855:attachment] [attachment=5854:attachment]

Next, we crack open a good book, like Taylor & Wheeler's Spacetime Physics, and figure out how long it would take to get a real spaceship to Alpha Centuri. What is the relativistic form to Tsiolkovsky's Rocket Equation? (OK, T&W does that for you) How much Plutonium would it have to carry? How much ionizable reaction mass?

I guarentee you, this hypothetical ship will get to the nearest star long before anyone invents a warp drive. Maybe I should ask NASA for $1.6 million, to develop this idea?