On Sun, 24 Mar 1996, Damon Jason Casale wrote:

This is two and a half years of time awake.  This *excludes* hypersleep.
Notice how long the story pegs them as being asleep, later on.  About 200.
Assume constant acceleration at one gee for the first half of the trip,
then constant deceleration at one gee.  The velocity will always be
changing.

OK, this is an internal inconsistancy. You clearly say 'two and a half 
years until we're scheduled to arrive at .. planet', not 'two and a half 
years until we return to hypersleep'. You also say you are 4/5ths of the 
way there. And have been spending 200 years in hypersleep.

If I were you, I'd drop 200 to 10. For the following reasons:

- It is widely assumed that most stars have planets around them
- It's extremely unlikely that one could determine the 'habitability' of 
  a planet at even a few hundred light years. You'd have to study 
  reflected light from the planet to determine its atmosphere, and that 
  would only be feasible with the near stars. Well, more feasible. You 
  could detect a planet farther away by changes in a stars spectral lines,
  but determining its atmosphere from the extremely tiny sliver of light 
  that passes through it is 99.999% impossible. Add in interstellar 
  matter, and it becomes ~120% impossible :)
- They would've had to launch in 2005. Can you really see them developing 
  a near-c engine in the next 9 years?
- I don't know many star names outside of 13ly :)

IMHO, this would make the story more feasible.

								- MW

       /////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
       \\  /*MW*/*MW*/*MW*/  Michael White  \*MW*\*MW*\*MW*\  //
	\\/*MW*/*MW*/*MW*/aj331@ccn.cs.dal.ca\*MW*\*MW*\*MW*\//
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\////////////////////////////////////
// The bring Robotech to YTV campaign has begun! For more information \\
\\        go to http://www.ccn.cs.dal.ca/~aj331/ytvcamp.html          //
 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////////////////////