At 02:18 PM 2/10/00 EST, you wrote:
Can anybody give me an estimate of travel time for a fusion engine powered
spacecraft with a boomer crew to and from Mars..?
Any help appreciated..
In a hypothetical fusion engine, a doughnut-shaped torus contains a gas of
deuterium (one
proton and one neutron) and helium-3 (two protons and one neutron),
confined in a
powerful magnetic field. Heated to more than 900 million degrees Fahrenheit
and then
injected with more gas, the atoms of deuterium and helium-3 fuse into an
unstable atom of
lithium-5, which instantly breaks into helium-4 and one proton. A tiny
amount of the mass
of lithium-5 is then converted to immense amounts of energy.
A nine-hundred-foot-long fusion-powered starship carries it's crew in a
forward cabin,
tens of thousands of tons of deuterium-helium-3 gas in midsection tanks,
and a reaction
chamber near the tail. highly energetic plasma resulting from the fusion
reaction surges out
the nozzle, propelling the craft to one-fifth the speed of light. radiators
disperse heat.
-- Spacefareres, from time-life books.
The book is all speculative, based on theories.
But this might be of use for your story.
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Science Fiction writers build castles in
the air; the fans move into them; and the
publishers collect the rent. It's a nice
place to visit but please dont' try and
live there
-Sharyn McCrumb "Bimbos of the death sun"
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I fic, therefore I might be.
omne ignotum pro magnifico
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