Re: Interstellar Propulsion idea using an Asteroid and a few comets!

From: N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\) (net_at_nospam.com)
Date: 09/15/04 

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 07:08:37 -0700

Dear Matthew Montchalin:

"Matthew Montchalin" <montch@aracnet.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0409150405060.11100-100000@onyx.spiritone.com...
> |From: "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" <N: dlzc1 D:cox T:net@nospam.com>
> |Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity, sci.astro.amateur, uk.sci.astronomy,
> | sci.space.policy, sci.astro.seti
> |Subject: Re: Interstellar Propulsion idea using an Asteroid and a few
> | comets!
> |
> |Dear Martin 53N 1W:
>
> <snip>
>
> |If you were not in a terrible hurry, and were only making periodic
> course
> |corrections, you could sail off towards the stars at a low enough
> velocity
> |that the momentum difference would not be high enough to shatter your
> |asteroid. Say at five hundred or a thousand km/sec. Enough stuff could
> |pile up on the front end to provide reaction mass... Harvesting it might
> be
> |problematic... ;>)
>
> For a 30,000 year 'hibernation' ship, a scale could keep track of the
> increase in mass, and when the scale is finally tipped, systems could
> come alive to harvest the mass and make use of it, if at all possible.
>
> Sure would be nice if the extra stuff that piles up could be thrown in a
> fusion reactor for use as fuel somehow.

Likely it will be the same stuff as populates the coma for a comet. Almost
no structure, and any really powerful collision will spray a lot out into
space, never to return. Be better to harvest it every six months or so.
Maybe, rotating the plow asteroid slowly...

David A. Smith

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