🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <93007.120340DOCTORJ@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> Jon J Thaler <DOCTORJ@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> writes:
>> Kilogram quantities of antimatter are quite adequate for early interstellar
>> probes, given modest vehicles... it looks plausible.
>
>A reality check:
>This is about 13 orders of magnitude larger than the total number of
>antiprotons ever created and stored (about 10**14)

Reality check right back at you:  plot human antimatter production capacity
versus time.  Interesting graph, no?  Sure, it's limited right now... but
it's growing fast.

If we mounted a major effort, we could probably be test-firing antimatter
rocket engines within ten years.  There are *NO* fundamental barriers that
anyone has been able to find.  It's purely a matter of scaling up and
optimizing the hardware -- the existing accelerators are optimized for
production of Nobel prizes, not bulk antimatter -- and solving assorted
straightforward engineering problems of handling and storage.  The idea
has been investigated in depth; no show-stoppers have appeared.

A production setup the size of the Hanford works could make enough
antimatter to open up the solar system.  Interstellar propulsion is
harder.  Kilogram quantities are probably going to have to be made in
space, not so much for handling reasons (although those aren't trivial)
as because of the sheer amounts of *energy* needed.  It would be a huge
project, but there's no fundamental problem; we could start designing
hardware tomorrow if it were urgent enough.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry