Quote:
Originally Posted by thrash
Sean Barrett's 1992 (!) Roleplayer article, "Stellar Windjammers: The Magnetic Space Sail Drive," has the following:
Radius (mile) = sqrt(thrust in tons)
Energy (MW-hrs) = 25.7 * sqrt((thrust in tons)^3)
Note that since Mars lacks a magnetosphere, any magsail (or plasma sail, for that matter) maneuvering would be in relation to the solar wind, not the planet as such.
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Wow! Talk about a blast from the past! I found
this article online if anyone wants to read the whole thing. (The radius should be 200*sqrt(thrust in tons) miles according to the article.) Now to translate this into
Spaceships terms. To keep things simple, let's assume the charging time is the deployment/retraction rate of one minute per mile of radius. Thus the energy required would be 1 PPh per mile of radius / 60. Thrust in tons would be 0.001 * LWT of ship making the radius=sqrt(40*LWT) miles. (The units might not exactly match but I don't want to get into the MW per PP debate.)
Dalton “Looks like I may have to retract my previous post” Spence