Drives IMTU

[ak_aramis]

Any practical interplanetary ship is inherently also a potential WMD. You cannot escape that and still be realistic. Crash a 2nd stage from a Falcon 9 into a major or semi-major city, and thousands will be injured from the blast and resulting fires. Even if it were filled with only water, it's going to have a nasty load of kinetic energy, simply to overcome gravity for a suborbital path like the 1st stage has.

Hit a small town, it may only be hundreds, but it's still going to do damage much like an FAE, and those are now banned as WMDs.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Any practical interplanetary ship is inherently also a potential WMD. You cannot escape that and still be realistic. Crash a 2nd stage from a Falcon 9 into a major or semi-major city, and thousands will be injured from the blast and resulting fires. Even if it were filled with only water, it's going to have a nasty load of kinetic energy, simply to overcome gravity for a suborbital path like the 1st stage has.

Hit a small town, it may only be hundreds, but it's still going to do damage much like an FAE, and those are now banned as WMDs.

True, but a WMD that can destroy a small town or badly damage a city is not nearly as bad as a WMD that devastate continents and cause ice ages.

[ericthered]

Where does the heat from dropping potential energy with the M-drive end up? In a specific location? In the ship's drive?


Anti-grav only between enclosed plates is a nice touch.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Where does the heat from dropping potential energy with the M-drive end up? In a specific location? In the ship's drive?


Anti-grav only between enclosed plates is a nice touch.

It ends up in the M-drive machinery. The usual practice is either to have radiators out on the hull or use it to heat reaction mass and shoot it out the nozzles. This does change the ship's intrinsic velocity. The pattern of distribution of the reaction mass as it leaves the drive field can be a bit odd.