Re: Exotic Propulsion ?

From: David Given (dg_at_cowlark.com)
Date: 08/19/04 

To: sci-space-tech@moderators.isc.org
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:46:04 GMT

william mook wrote:
[...]
> Consider that by bombarding Oxygen 18 - which is stable and has an
> abundance of 1/5th percent - with a neutron makes it into Oxygen 19.
> This is unstable and in a few seconds decays into Flourine and an
> ANTI-NEUTRON.

Unfortunately, this seems not to be the case --- when oxygen-19 decays into
flourine-19, it emits an electron and an anti-*neutrino*. Which, alas, is a
quite different thing to an anti-neutron.

http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/iso008.html

[...]
> Also, if this works we might have a very controllable and safe source
> of energy. Implemented as a micro rocket array (neutron source,
> neutron/anti-neutron conversion process, energetic particle stream -
> all built tiny and occurring as a huge array across a propulsive skin)
> it would be sci-fi style space vehicles would be possible!

It would be nice if it worked. The net effect would be that you feed
oxygen-19 into a reaction chamber, bombard it with neutrons, and you get
really hot flourine-19 that can be used as your exhaust. Stable and
efficient... it's a pity that the universe doesn't seem to like that sort
of thing. AFAIK the only way of producing antiparticles is to pump stonking
great quantities of energy into a particle accelerator and hope that when
your particles collide, antiparticles are created. 

-- 
+- David Given --McQ-+ "There does not now, nor will there ever, exist a
|  dg@cowlark.com    | programming language in which it is the least bit
| (dg@tao-group.com) | hard to write bad programs." --- Flon's Axiom
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