[Fred Brackin]

It has occurred to me that this drive might be semi-attractive to a long-range colonization effort similar to the Sword Worlds. It's a one way trip and the travellers aren't interacting with known civilization anymore either. So they are on a completely internal schedule.

The problem with that might be that annual overhauls come after you've covered 1/4th the distance.

Maybe the islands drive needs less maintenance and they have a design for an overbuilt fusion reactor that can go for similar periods of time without major maintenance.

Colonization might be it though. The military would have little use for such a drive.

Incidentally, the crew can't be"sedated" in any conventional use of that word. They're either using a suspended animation drug or they're in low berths.