From: adam.w.krajewski@gmail.com   
      
   All right, next part, i finally managed to find some time.    
   Hmm, what's the exact speed of sound in interstellar medium? I know it varies   
   probably, but are there some numbers for that?   
   I still prefer the idea of one engine and turning around in the middle of   
   trip, it's saving on mass a lot, so that's worth fighting. With those   
   turbulences, I think we don't have enough data to say it will ne a problem or   
   not. Theoretically you can deal    
   with it by some magnetic / particle shields, create something like "bubble"   
   with almost no interstellar medium.    
      
   "Another thing; the fountain-style radiator *won't work* when the ship is   
   flying backward to decelerate because the molten metal coolant isn't going to   
   "fall back" to the dust shield- it'll just spray off into space and eventually   
   run out. If the ship    
   decelerates with the dust shield facing forward the spray will just go a   
   little farther before "falling back" (actually the ship runs into it)."   
      
   Hmm,  but when ship is decelerating backward, it sprays coolant, and ship   
   produces artificial gravity by deceleration process, so it will fall. This   
   ship is like antimatter torchship, it needs high accel to get to 0.7 c or so   
   and brake then.   
   Also, how effective is this type of radiator? There are plenty of radiator   
   designs, we don't have to stick with this one, we can even combine two   
   systems.    
      
   "It's starting to look to me like it would be better to have two drive   
   systems, one at each end of the ship, or better yet to have some way to rotate   
   the engines so they faced into the direction of flight for deceleration."   
      
   Second way is much better, saving on mass. I am thinking about third way, not   
   using gigantic rotation system, but just uninstall engines, rotate them, and   
   mount in good direction. Probably you need some time to do this, but ship will   
   stay in "middle    
   phase" of flight for enough time I think.    
   It seems you are right about detection and interception of ship, it's probably   
   the best option to wait for it to stop. Or, instead of lasers and kinetics,   
   point our antimatter drives at them, impede their lidars radars and kill the   
   crew when they come    
   too close. Like antimatter created plasma - PBW. Their ship makes less   
   protection for crew and has not got gigantic heat sink and whole atmosphere.    
      
   "Also, maybe separating the ship into pieces isn't the best idea. If it came   
   into Earth orbit it would be most stable with its long axis extended through   
   the Earth; it could do so with the shield facing Earth to stop nuclear   
   missiles and whatnot."   
      
   Huh, maybe you are right, I wanted this ship to look like this because I   
   wanted to have realistic Sulaco - like warship with interstellar capabilities,   
   after it I thought about replacing warship with anything what you want to   
   transport. In this place a    
   lot depends on setting, how expensive is tug (maybe it's so expensive nobody   
   will put it closer to target than Jupiter, or if it can transport multiple   
   ships to attack from different vectors).    
   Smoke screen idea is great, throw exhaust in different vectors forward, and   
   you have nice tool for stealth.    
   Also, are we talking about beamed antimatter engine, or this Avatar one   
   (hybrid of plasma and beam, if I understand correctly).    
   Huh, that's end I think.    
   What do you think about submitting some of our posts here to Atomic Rockets?   
   Especially your turbulences seems to be important.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)