🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0GH9C.DA@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <wwLXwB4w165w@tradent.wimsey.bc.ca> lord@tradent.wimsey.bc.ca (Jason Cooper) writes:
>>2) you won't have to carry 
>>around what I see as becoming GIGANTIC amounts of antimatter...
> 
> The amounts of antimatter get huge only when you start trying to achieve
> seriously relativistic velocities.

Does a Bussard ramjet work *at all* below seriously relativistic
velocities?  

Seems to me below some large speed, which I recall as
something much bigger than .5c, you don't gather enough interstellar
hydrogen to keep things stoked.  Admittedly I remember details rather
fuzzily, and don't know how to apply them to the "ram-augmented
interstellar rocket" Henry is talking about. 

To learn more, by the way, consult articles by A.R. Martin and others
concerning "ram-augmented interstellar rockets"  (RAIR) in *Journal of
the British Interplanetary Society* somewhere between 1975 and the
present.   

Bob Forward did a bibliography of literature on interstellar flight in
the same period, which a couple of Czech guys updated later, all in
the pages of *JBIS*.   This may be very helpful to Jason Cooper in his
project.  Good luck finding a library that has this journal, though!

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